The winner receives approximately half of the £1 million purse (£561,300 in 2019), and that’s just the base winnings.
This doesn’t include endorsements, advertisement deals, breeding rights to the horse, public appearances and all the other benefits that come with being a winner of the UK’s biggest horse race.
Second place wins £200,000, and the value drops even further the lower you finish. This can be particularly painful if the difference between first and second place is just a nose.
In 2012, for instance, the gap between Sunnyhillboy and Neptune Collonges was barely a fraction of a second. As a result, the second-place finish for Sunnyhillboy was much harder to swallow.