The 2022 Belmont Stakes is the annual last stop of the Triple Crown season – and it’s also arguably the hardest because it’s just so draining for the horses. After all, the Belmont Stakes is called The Test the Champion because it’s the longest among the three Triple Crown races. With that kind of challenge plus the prestige of the race, it only makes perfect sense that the money to be distributed at the Belmont Stakes is an enormous sum of $1.5 million. The winner is expected to gallop to the bank with a check worth $800,000. The Belmont Stakes has come a long way in terms of the payout. In its initial run way, way, way back in 1867, the total purse was just $2,500, with the winning horse, a filly named Ruthless, cashing in $1,850.
In the 1920s, the purse at the Belmont Stakes received major boosts, going from $7,950 in 1920 to $66,040 in 1930. Fast forward to 1998, the purse at the Belmont Stakes ballooned to a total of $1 million guaranteed. Around 16 years later, that total increased to $1.5 million.
It looks like that the breakdown of the purse at the 2022 Belmont Stakes will be similar to that in 2021 when Essential Quality won the event for a scintillating prize of $800,000.Hot Dog Charlie came in second for $280,000, while third-placer Rombauer cashed in $150,000.
