How much does a horse trainer make when his horse he trains wins, say, a $1,000,000 race?

Question

How much does a horse trainer make when his horse he trains wins, say, a $1,000,000 race?

Answer 1

Different trainers negotiate different contracts.  Typically they will charge a daily or weekly rate per horse and will recieve a percentage of the purse (usually around 10%).  

Purses are distributed via a percentage system, but depending on where the race was run, the winning horse may have earned between 55-75% fo the purse.  So for a $1,000,000 race the winning horse might recieve $550,000-750,000, 10% of which would be $55,000-75,000.  Many trainers split this amount with their stable help.  Some give 1% of purse money to the groom & exercise rider, others bank all of their purse money and distribute percentages throughout the stable yard.

Answer 2

10% of the purse.....$100.000.00

Answer 3

Depends on what the trainer and jockey agree apon.

Answer 4

10% is payed by the club to the trainer jockeys get 5%.(Jockey by trade in Australia 27 years)

Answer 5

in england trainers get 10% of the prize money

Answer 6

It is typical/customary for a public trainer to get 10% of the purse monies won by the horses he trains.  In a race with a purse of $1 million, the winner typically gets about $600,000, so the trainer will get $60,000.

There may be other contractual arrangements between the owner and the trainer.  Shug McGaughey, for example, is a private trainer for the Phipps, Claiborne Farm, and a few other selected patrons.  I don't know exactly what his contract specifies, but typically a private trainer gets a salary which may be in lieu of the 10% of purses, or in addition to some percentage.

Also, what a trainer gets when a horse wins a race may be enhanced by other perks.  It is typical for the trainer to get a lifetime breeding right to a stallion that he trained as a racehorse.  A breeding right is different from a share, in the sense that it isn't an ownership interest in the horse, but it can be a very lucrative perk.  Jonathan Sheppard trained Storm Cat, who as a racehorse earned a total of $570,610.  Sheppard would have gotten a maximum  of $57,061 in purse money from Storm Cat's winnings.  But he got a lifetime breeding right to the horse.  Every year he's sold the season he has for the going rate...which has, for several years, been $500,000, and was for years before that $300,000 or $250,000.  That's a really nice chunk of income.  (FWIW, most trainers sell the seasons that they have acquired for training horses, and some sell the breeding right itself.)

It's also fairly typical for the trainer to get some percentage of the money that comes from sale of a horse he has trained, so there's some additional income from that as many racehorse owners don't breed their own horses and so sell them when their racing days are over.  

Intangible "earnings" that a trainer makes when his or her horse wins a big race:  the opportunity to get more clients, or richer clients.  Winning any kind of a major stakes race can help a trainer who is struggling to get noticed.  (If the trainer acted as agent in the purchase of the horse, it can help him to get other commissions to purchase horses.)

Answer 7

Nothing unless it was previously agreed upon - this is between the horse owner and the trainer.

I had a friend that was a trainer and they only got a normal salary and no percentage of the winnings.

Answer 8

Most trainers get 10% of the winnings.

Answer 9

10% of earnings, so a million dollar race is usually 600,000 to the winner, 60,000 to the trainer (paid by owner).

Answer 10

Most of the bigger races pay 60% to the winning owner, 10% of which will go to the trainer so in that case, it is $60,000