The Rich 50: Who Are The Highest Earning Racehorses Of All Time?

When Forever Young and Voyage Bubble won Group 1 races on opposite sides of Asia within 15 hours in February, they became the latest members of one of horse racing’s most exclusive groups – the US$10 million club.

In fact, after Forever Young became the 49th member with his Saudi Cup victory, Voyage Bubble quickly became the milestone 50th by taking out the Hong Kong Gold Cup. That came almost 25 years after T M Opera O became the first horse to top $10 million with his win in the 2000 Japan Cup.

It is a statistic brimming with numerous asterisks and caveats, given the global nature of racing and the many different ways such a metric can be calculated.

So how was this list determined?

Since the turn of the century, racing’s global governing body – the International Federation of Horseracing Authorities – has issued an annual list of exchange rates with the US dollar, in conjunction with the International Grading and Race Planning Advisory Committee. It is usually based on the exchange rate at the start of each calendar year.

While a number of rich races either have a prize pool in American dollars or are run in countries whose currencies are pegged to the US dollar and do not fluctuate – think the Saudi riyal, the Emirati dirham or the Hong Kong dollar – a number of horses have competed in jurisdictions whose currencies can be wildly volatile against the US dollar. Chief among them are Britain’s pound sterling, the Euro, the Japanese yen and the Australian dollar.

The best measure of prizemoney –  in ‘real terms’ – can be made by calculating a horse’s annual earnings against those yearly exchange rates. It does not take inflation into account, merely how much a horse earned in American dollars at the time they raced.

Here are the top 20 earners in real terms, as of April 16, 2025:

20. Lys Gracieux

Lys Gracieux was well performed at three and a Group 1 winner at four, but it was the second half of her five-year-old season that catapulted her into this list. She won both of Japan’s all-star races, the Takarazuka Kinen at Hanshin in June and the Arima Kinen at Nakayama in December, by big margins. In between, she became the only Japanese winner of Australasia’s weight-for-age championship, the Cox Plate.

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19. Panthalassa

Panthalassa became one of Japan’s most popular exports abroad because of his relentless front-running style. It saw him become one of the few horses to win Group 1 races on both turf and dirt, landing the 2022 Dubai Turf in a dead heat with Lord North and the 2023 Saudi Cup. Some of his best races, though, came in defeat, including a bold effort in the 2022 Tenno Sho (Autumn) which saw him run down on the line by a rampaging Equinox.

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18. Nature Strip

Nature Strip seemed destined to be another talent who never realised his full potential as a youngster. The chestnut sensation clearly had top-class ability but he did so many things wrong in his races. However, with racing he became more tractable and he was able to scale the heights of Australian racing. His career coincided with an explosion in prizemoney for Australian sprints, led by The Everest, and his consistent performances in that race – fourth in 2019, seventh in 2020, success in 2021 and fourth in 2022 – was a big driver of his earnings. He also took his talents abroad, winning the King’s Stand Stakes at Royal Ascot.

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17. Forever Young

Forever Young’s win in the Saudi Cup propelled him into this list. In fact, despite winning big races like the Tokyo Daishoten and the Japan Dirt Derby at home, he would be nowhere near this club if it were not for his success abroad. For interest’s sake, had he won the Dubai World Cup as he was widely expected to do, he would have been third on this list – the third member of the USD$20 million club but about $150,000 shy of Golden Sixty – rather than 17th.

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16. Bella Nipotina

The recently retired Bella Nipotina could potentially have been higher on this list if she had struck her greatest success when the Australian dollar was stronger in the early part of her career. However, she aged gracefully and – despite being a stakes-winning two-year-old – her best success came at six and seven. That was capped with a tough victory in The Everest last year – the first horse to win the race after it was elevated to Group 1 status.

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15. Gold Ship

One of the most popular horses to ever race in Japan, he was known for his nutcase antics but also his immense talent. He had an incredible resume, including two legs of the Japanese Triple Crown – the Satsuki Sho and the Kikuka Sho – as well as the Arima Kinen, the Takarazuka Kinen twice and the Tenno Sho (Spring). And to think that, had he not reared badly at the start as a heavily backed favourite in the 2015 Takarazuka Kinen, he would have overtaken T M Opera O to make it into the top 10. To this day in Japan it is still known as the ‘12 billion yen incident’.

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14. Kitasan Black

Kitasan Black is one of two members of the top 20 who is also the sire of another member of the top 20. He is the sire of Equinox, while Orfevre is the sire of Ushba Tesoro. As good a racehorse as he was, renowned for his strong stamina and his ability to sustain a long run, it is as a stallion that he is really making his stamp on the industry. On the track, he was a seven-time Group 1 winner from 2000m to 3200m, including the 2016 Japan Cup and the 2017 Arima Kinen.

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13. Gun Runner

A tremendous four-year-old season saw Gun Runner finish second in the Dubai World Cup (behind another member of this list, Arrogate) before sweeping the Stephen Foster, the Whitney, the Woodward, the Breeders’ Cup Classic and the Pegasus World Cup. He could have been the first member of the USD$20 million club had he pushed on to Meydan and won the Dubai World Cup. Instead, he retired to stud where his best performer so far is last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic winner Sierra Leone.

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12. Mishriff

Mishriff remains the only horse to win the Saudi Cup and then go on to win at the Dubai World Cup meeting six weeks later. His success didn’t come in the Dubai World Cup though, instead claiming the Dubai Sheema Classic over 2410m on turf. A winner of seven of his 21 starts, he perhaps has the least imposing record of any horse in the top 20 – but he won when it counted.

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11. Thunder Snow

To date, Thunder Snow remains the only two-time winner of the Dubai World Cup. Take those two wins out, though, and his record looks far less stellar – although he was a consistent performer at the highest level on both dirt and turf, a rare commodity these days. He became a rare horse to contest both the Kentucky Derby on dirt and the Irish 2000 Guineas on turf in the same month.

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10. T M Opera O

When T M Opera O retired, he was the highest-earning racehorse of all time. It would be a position he would hold until Orfevre won the 2013 Arima Kinen at his final start. A decent three-year-old, it was his four-year-old year in 2000 where he really excelled, winning the Tenno Sho (Spring), Takarazuka Kinen, Tenno Sho (Autumn), Japan Cup and Arima Kinen in an amazing five-start campaign. It was in that fighting Japan Cup victory that he became the first horse to top US$10 million, surpassing the great Cigar who fell $185 short with US$9,999,815 in earnings.

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9. Almond Eye

Almond Eye remains one of the greatest mares Japan ever produced, completing the Japanese Fillies’ Triple Crown of the Oka Sho, Yushun Himba and Shuka Sho in 2018 before adding her first Japan Cup at the end of her three-year-old season. A strong Dubai Turf winner at four, she capped her career at five with a memorable defeat of the great Contrail in front of an empty Tokyo grandstand.

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8. Arrogate

The late Arrogate did not win his first race until days before the 2016 Belmont Stakes was won by Creator. If he’d appeared earlier, perhaps we would have been talking about the third Triple Crown winner of the decade – in between American Pharoah and Justify – and certainly the best of the bunch. His Travers win was breathtaking, his extraordinary battle with California Chrome in the Breeders’ Cup Classic was a race for the ages, his victory in the inaugural Pegasus World Cup was as classy as it gets and his Dubai World Cup triumph has to be seen to be believed. A true champion.

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7. Equinox

Equinox was the complete package as a racehorse: stunning visually with an incredible will to win, almighty acceleration and the ability to sustain top speed for furlongs. Bad draws consigned him to his two defeats in the Satsuki Sho and the Tokyo Yushun, but by the time of his four-year-old season, not even bad luck could beat him. In 13 months, he won the Tenno Sho (Autumn) twice, the Arima Kinen, the Dubai Sheema Classic, the Takarazuka Kinen and the Japan Cup. He may not be Japan’s top horse on this list, but he is right up there with the best horses that Japan has ever produced.

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6. Winx

It was never thought that any horse would surpass Kingston Town’s three Cox Plate victories, but Winx made it four in 2018. That was among a 33-win streak that included a world record 25 Group 1 victories from 1300m to 2200m. She often won by big margins on the bridle, but her most impressive victories came when she found a way to win against all odds – take the 2017 Warwick Stakes, when she blew the start and somehow ran down stablemate Foxplay on the line. Perhaps the greatest shame is that she never raced outside Australia; the same critique can be made of Golden Sixty and is something that makes Romantic Warrior one of the all-time greats. She was also never the world’s highest earner in real terms, something that has been attributed to her numerous times since her retirement.

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5. Ushba Tesoro

Ushba Tesoro retired recently after finishing sixth in the Dubai World Cup, an effort that was enough for him to leapfrog Winx into fifth. By a quirk of currency conversion, he retired as Japan’s highest ever earner – a title which remains his when considering earnings in yen, even if he is not the highest Japanese horse on this list. This is because most of his earnings – from winning the 2023 Dubai World Cup, finishing second in both the Saudi Cup and the Dubai World Cup in 2024, finishing third in the 2025 Saudi Cup and also his fifth in the 2023 Breeders’ Cup Classic – came abroad at a time when the yen has been weakening dramatically. In real terms, though, he fell just short of surpassing his sire Orfevre – although had he got his nose down to finish fifth at Meydan last month, he would have still fallen short but by less than $25,000.

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4. Orfevre

Here’s the big question: had he held on to win that famous 2012 Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe that broke Japanese hearts, where would he have ended up? The difference between first and second prize was €1,371,200 that year, which – on official exchange rates – equates to US$1,789,553. So had he won, he would have been the first member of the US$20 million club on $21,079,781. He only would have been passed once Golden Sixty won the 2023 Hong Kong Mile. As it happens, his Hall of Fame career – winner of the Japanese Triple Crown (Satsuki Sho, Tokyo Yushun, Kikuka Sho), two Arima Kinens and a Takarazuka Kinen and seconds in two Arcs and a Japan Cup – still put him on top of the world at his retirement. He would only hold the title for a year until Gentildonna’s Arima Kinen swansong a year after his own finale in the same race.

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3. Gentildonna

One of Japan’s best ever horses, Gentildonna remains queen of the ranks as the highest Japanese earner in real terms as well as the highest-ranked female. Like Almond Eye, she would win the Japanese Fillies’ Triple Crown – the Oka Sho, Yushun Himba and Shuka Sho – before defeating Orfevre by a nose in the 2012 Japan Cup. She remains the only horse to win back-to-back Japan Cups, given Almond Eye won hers in non-consecutive years. It was her Arima Kinen win at her final start, though, which put her so high on this list. She would remain as the world number one for nearly a decade, until Golden Sixty became the first to crack US$20 million by winning his third Hong Kong Mile.

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2. Golden Sixty

It was thought that no horse could ever match the almighty sprint sensation Silent Witness in popularity in Hong Kong – but then along came Golden Sixty. He emerged as Hong Kong’s next champion at a time when the city – and the world – was shutting down due to the Covid pandemic and he was one of the few consistent factors during that period. He swept the Four-Year-Old Classic Series but it was at a mile that he found his best, joining Good Ba Ba as a three-time winner of the Hong Kong Mile and winning 26 of his 31 starts in the city. It is truly a shame that we never saw him outside Hong Kong, which was largely due to the pandemic; the Dubai Turf looked a race tailor-made for him. His time at the top was fairly short though; passed by Romantic Warrior in December, 12 months after he made it to number one with his third Hong Kong Mile success.

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1. Romantic Warrior

What more can be said about Romantic Warrior? Even as his cloak of invincibility has slipped in his last two starts, he has emerged with his reputation not just intact but enhanced. The Hong Kong superstar dominated a fairly lacklustre middle distance division at home, but his exploits abroad – with wins in the Cox Plate, Yasuda Kinen and Jebel Hatta – proved this was no fluke. His Saudi Cup second to Forever Young was arguably the best performance of his career, while he performed below his best and still almost won the Dubai Turf over Soul Rush. For the record, had he won both the Saudi Cup and the Dubai Turf, his prizemoney would have soared to just shy of US$38 million. Even now, though, it feels as though his position as the world’s highest earner (in real terms) is safe for years to come.

To find the full list of horses who have earned more than USD$10 million in real terms, explore the below chart: