Victoria's maiden prizemoney boosts welcomed industry wide

Cover image courtesy of The Image Is Everything

Racing Victoria’s strategic prizemoney restructuring for the 2025/26 season has had some mixed reactions across trainers and owners in the state. The G1 Melbourne Cup and G1 Cox Plate have received million dollar plus top-ups and hundreds of maidens across the state have been boosted, but is the flow of money going in the right direction?

A deserving increase to maidens

A total of 1400 country maidens statewide will have their prizemoney increased by $5000, a move welcomed by many. First Light Racing’s Tim Wilson described the upgrade as “well overdue”.

“We have five per cent owners that want to have a chance of breaking even,” he said. “They come into racehorse ownership with their eyes wide open, but they can’t solely rely on the thrill, the passion, and the excitement.

“We've lost a lot of participants in the last five to 10 years due to the poor outlook in terms of return on investment. It's much easier to retain owners than find new ones.

“Obviously Victorian racing is outstanding, the history, the Spring Carnival, but I’m talking about financials and return on investment. This is a step in the right direction. We need prizemoney to outpace expenses. Hopefully this is just the start over the next five to 10 years, but it’s a good start, and overdue.”

The value and opportunity to owners is also of great importance to Proven Thoroughbreds’ Jamie Walter, who celebrated an interstate winning double on Saturday courtesy of In Flight (Flying Artie) in the G3 Sir John Monash Stakes at Caulfield and King’s Secret (Shalaa {Ire}) at Randwick.

“I think they’ve done a great job in rewarding maidens more and also adding to the value of their signature races,” Walter said. “I think Racing Victoria, without theoretically raising prizemoney, have redistributed the money in a very sensible way. I actually complimented them in my short speech there yesterday (Saturday) in the winners room (at Caulfield), and I was most impressed with what Racing Victoria have done.”

Proven Thoroughbreds expanded operations in 2024/25, buying yearlings in partnership with Charlotte Littlefield and setting million dollar earner Stockman (NZ) (Tavistock {NZ}) for a career in jumps racing. The gelding scored his 10th career victory in a maiden hurdle event last week for trainer Symon Wilde.

Sustainability of the industry at all levels has been an important topic as of late; from the numbers given by Racing Australia’s Fact Book, 5.9 per cent of racehorses earned more than $100,000 in prizemoney in the 2023/24 season.

“If you’ve got a horse that cost $100,000, and it costs another $100,000 to get it to the races, you need to be getting back at least half your money to make it viable,” Wilson said. “It’s something to work towards.”

Trainer Mick Price recognises the need to care for those lower tiers of racing.

“I think the main thing is to sustain the industry properly and not have it heavily weighted at the top end," he said. "We’ve got 1400 maidens that have increased by $5000 each. Whilst it's not industry changing as such, it still helps the sustainability of owners paying for horses. Training fees are not cheap, and I think it's a good idea. So that part is definitely a tick.”

Top races trading places

Price feels favourable about the price bump to the Melbourne Cup, characterising the changes to the prizemoney structure - which include shaving money of the G1 Australian Cup and the G1 All-Star Mile to facilitate boosts to other races - as “not drastic”.

“Increasing the Melbourne Cup prizemoney to $10 million is a good idea,” he said. “It's one of our cornerstone races of our calendar year - it's the cornerstone race of a very, very lucrative carnival.”

Some have been critical of the increase, but Price thought it a reasonable reward to entrants.

“It's an expensive race to accept for, I think from the initial accepters to getting into the race, it might be $60-70,000 or something. So, $100,000 for every horse outside of the top 12, I think that's a good thing.”

He also acknowledged the increase for the G3 Thoroughbred Club Stakes - rising from $200,000 to $1 million - could be a good addition to the program, but that only time would tell if the race could morph itself into what it hopes to be.

“I get what the Melbourne Racing Club is trying to do with the Thoroughbred Club Stakes,” Price said. “There's no 3-year-old fillies 1200-metre Group 1 as such. I don't know if there had to be. They're going to throw a lot of prize money at it, then they have to build the profile of that, which will take a few years.”

Past winners of the Thoroughbred Club such as Sunlight (Zoustar) and Earthquake (Exceed And Excel) provide a glimpse of the race's potential. While more recent winners haven’t reached that calibre, the increase is expected to attract stronger fields moving forward.

“If in five years, we look at it and it becomes a genuine Group 1 3-year-old fillies race, so be it. It’s got to have the quality to justify it to the pattern committee.”

Scheduled two weeks after the G1 Coolmore Stud Stakes and over the same distance, the Thoroughbred Club Stakes offers elite fillies an opportunity to compete in both - but with the Coolmore already serving as a natural target promising a big paycheque, some question whether the $800,000 boost to the Thoroughbred Club Stakes might have been better used elsewhere.

Using the same model as the maiden increases, that money could have added $5000 to 160 additional maidens or entry level benchmark races, or $2500 to 320 races, supporting the broader ownership base.

The All-Star Mile money has gone directly towards the maidens as outlined above.

“I’m glad they’ve reduced money from the All-Star Mile to go towards the boost of maiden races,” Wilson said. “There’s been so much money wasted on the All-Star Mile and promoting it - hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lower level prizemoney is much more in need.”

Interstate comparisons

For Walter, the raising of maidens makes racing more viable and attractive in Victoria. The programming in terms of race class and length has already been present, but the prizemoney has needed to play catch up. With regional prizemoney starting to catch up with what's on offer over the border in New South Wales - at the very least, at the same level - Walter feels the gap is shrinking between the two jurisdictions.

“I think Victoria does a great job with putting on more races for mares and there's clearly more staying races programmed in Victoria than there are in New South Wales,” Walter said. “And of course there's jumps racing, which is another option for you as an owner.

“I tend to sort of look at a lot of racing issues from the perspective of the owners, because that's who I'm representing, ultimately. (Opportunity is) what we're trying to sniff out all the time. Where's the best opportunity for our horses and our owners? And I'm very pleased to now have more horses trained in Victoria.”

For Wilson, it's still not quite enough; “First Light Racing has horses in New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria and Western Australia right now, and in terms of prizemoney and costs, Victoria comes in a clear fourth.

“NSW prizemoney is outstanding on a Saturday, and while Queensland and WA have a geographical disadvantage, QTIS and Westspeed schemes are incredible. You can be racing for $80,000 on a Saturday in Brisbane, and training fees are roughly 30 per cent less than Victoria.”

Every little helps, then, in a particularly expensive hobby.

“Not all owners and trainers and jockeys live in the Group 1 sphere,” Price said. “The realistic thing is that training fees are expensive, and we're not rewarding mediocrity, but we're being realistic about the sustainability of owners paying up for horses. (Racing) is a great hobby. It's one of the few hobbies that you can make money in. But it's like anything. If you lose too much money, you're not going to do it.”