£175,000 to £90,000 - but it's hard to quibble with Clarence House prize drop

The Grade 1 LK Bennett Clarence House Chase at Ascot scheduled for last Saturday was worth £175,000. The rearranged Grade 1 Albert Bartlett Clarence House Chase at Cheltenham this weekend is worth £90,000.

That is a fairly whopping drop, so where has all the money gone? To answer that I made some phone calls – to the Levy Board's chief executive Alan Delmonte and Ascot’s director of racing Nick Smith – and the situation became a lot more understandable.

The two main sources of prize-money are contributions from the racecourse, which includes the sponsor, and the Levy Board, which can include discretionary additions from the BHA. In this instance the Levy Board is putting up just £6,000 less for the race at Cheltenham than it was at Ascot, with the vast majority of the shortfall coming from a much lower contribution from Cheltenham and stand-in sponsor Albert Bartlett.