This week it was reported that Thesis, the horse who won the 2022 Britannia Stakes at Royal Ascot, had been sold to race in Hong Kong.
The horse’s trainer Harry Charlton admitted that the ‘spending power is hard to contend with’ when a bid comes in from Hong Kong. Looking through the data it is probably fair to say that this will be money well spent.
Thesis will be the fourth Britannia winner since 2013 to move to Hong Kong and the stats suggest he will likely earn his new owners three times as much as he could do in Europe. The graph below shows the career earnings of winners between 2009 and 2018 – ten years in which three horses were sold to Hong Kong.
The three biggest careers earners were the three horses who moved abroad, averaging £743,606 in earnings compared to the £216,465 for those who stayed at home (although Bless Him is still going strong and adding to his winnings).
The stand out performer is Britannia winner Roca Tumu who raced as Beauty Flame in Hong Kong and won over a million pounds in win and place prize money.
Even the least successful of the three Hong Kong horses, Limitless, still earned £426,000 despite only two wins in Hong Kong.
It is highly unlikely that these three horses we significantly better than the other seven winners, so if ever you wanted a simple example of the differential in prize money in the UK compared to other jurisdictions then this could be it.
Sport.dat 