The last leg of the 2021 Triple Crown season is coming right up on Saturday, June 5th. There will be no Triple Crown winner this year, though, as the 2021 Kentucky Derby and the 2021 Preakness Stakes were won by different horses; Essential Quality won the Derby, while Medina Spirit topped the Preakness Stakes. A number of horses who raced in the Run for the Roses skipped the race at Pimlico and will be racing this coming weekend at Elmont Park down in New York. The reason for that is largely about money, since the Belmont Stakes is a more lucrative race than the Preakness Stakes. The 2021 Belmont Stakes has a total purse of $1.5 million, while the Preakness’ total payout was at $1 million. The Kentucky Derby is the richest of the three, with a total purse worth $3 million.
The winning horse in the 2021 Belmont Stakes stands to win a cool sum of $800,000. As of this writing, there is no official word yet about the exact payout for the top finishers. Last year, Tiz the Law won the 2020 Belmont Stakes for a $535,000 prize. But that was when the total purse was only $1 million. The runner-up got $200,000, the third $110,000, the fourth $60,000, and the fifth $30,000. All those figures should be higher this time around, thanks to the half-a-million-dollar bump to the purse.
The first-ever Belmont Stakes race was held way, way back in 1867, with Ruthless as the first-ever winner of the race. The total purse for that event? $2,500. When it comes to money, the Belmont Stakes has gone a very long way.
