On a misty evening in November 2022, a small crowd of racegoers at Kempton Park could not see the starting stalls on the far side of the track. The potential of a horse named Slipofthepen became obvious just 90 seconds later, when he emerged from the fog nearly six lengths clear of the runner-up. The jockey’s famous purple, scarlet and gold silks were a clue to the horse’s royal pedigree.
Slipofthepen was one of about 100 thoroughbred horses inherited by King Charles III from Queen Elizabeth II in September 2022. Nearly 30 were sold within a few weeks of her death, at public auctions of racing and breeding stock, where the “E II R” gilets and scarves worn by grooms from the Royal Stud at Sandringham set their horses apart from the others parading in front of prospective buyers.
The late queen was arguably the most enthusiastic royal owner and breeder of racehorses in British history. The king has so far realised just over £2.25m by selling off her horses, but Charles III still privately owns dozens of thoroughbreds, in training in racing yards or stabled at the Royal Stud.
Cost of the crown is an investigation into royal wealth and finances. The series, published ahead of the coronation of King Charles III, is seeking to overcome centuries of secrecy to better understand how the royal family is funded, the extent to which individual members have profited from their public roles, and the dubious origins of some of their wealth. The Guardian believes it is in the public interest to clarify what can legitimately be called private wealth, what belongs to the British people, and what, as so often is the case, straddles the two.
Many expect him to sell off at least 50% of his late mother’s horses, doing so gradually over the coming years to maximise their value. The Guardian has conducted the first public valuation of all the king’s horses, suggesting they could fetch a total of at least £27m.
A queen’s lifelong obsession
Throughout her seven decades on the throne, the queen invested untold amounts of time, effort and personal wealth in pursuing what she once described as “a simple philosophy” – to breed “a horse faster than other people’s”.
A keen racegoer, the queen insisted her diary was blocked off for the Derby at Epsom and the Royal meeting at Ascot. But she was more enthusiastic still about breeding thoroughbreds, watching them develop into racehorses, and then, ultimately, the sires and dams (parents) of the next generation.
Elizabeth took a close interest in her horses from the earliest possible stage. Matings were planned and stallions booked months in advance. CCTV cameras were installed in the boxes at her Sandringham stud farm to allow her to watch foals being born.
Their names were chosen carefully, often reflecting successive generations of families that had been at the stud for decades. Hypoteneuse had foals named Geometrist, Equal Sum, Longside and Pythagorean. Wink Of An Eye was a son of Momentary, and her mother, Fleeting Memory, was a daughter of Flight Of Fancy.
Once a year, all the queen’s horses in training in Newmarket would converge on one of the town’s gallops for a private exercise morning in front of their owner. In addition to regular attendance at Epsom and Ascot, there was often a security guard outside the royal box on lesser race days at Newbury – a sign that the monarch was in attendance. And once the horses’ racing days were over, the cycle would start again as she carefully chose stallions to cover the best of her mares, breeding a fresh generation that would not see a track for another three or four years.
It was – and for now, at least, remains – a significant and expensive operation. The many dozens of thoroughbreds that have been inherited by the king – from recently born foals to horses in training and breeding stock at the Royal Stud – represent the legacy assets of countless millions of pounds that were ploughed into the queen’s passion over 70 years.
The queen’s first horse, a Shetland pony, was a fourth-birthday present from her grandfather George V, whose own father, Edward VII, was prince regent when he established the Royal Stud at Sandringham in 1886. The queen then inherited the racing and breeding stock of her father, George VI, after his death in 1952.
It was almost certainly a loss-making hobby for the queen, but the legacy is an impressive and extensive racing and breeding operation. King Charles has shown no sign of the obsessive interest that would be required to maintain it at its current level, which may explain the sell-off that has begun. Few racing insiders expect the royal stock to be run down completely, and the operation will probably continue, at a slowly diminishing fraction of its former strength, for several years.
Camilla, the Queen Consort, has bred and co-owned several racehorses with Charles since 2008, and she is the most likely member of the royal family to continue racing and breeding from the horses that are not sold. Irrespective of how many horses Charles or Camilla decide to keep or sell, one thing is beyond dispute: his mother has left him what is, by any ordinary measure, a fortune in equine assets.
Equine assets in the millions
Estimating the total value of those assets is not straightforward. Unlike, say, an old master or a vintage car, a racehorse’s value can be subject to wild variation as its career develops, even from one day to the next. To maximise its value, an owner needs to sell a horse at the right moment, in the right venue, with the right people in attendance.
Even when an owner is breeding 20 or 25 horses a year to race, as the royal operation was before the queen’s death, a single outstanding performer can eventually be worth more than all those foaled in the same year put together.
Slipofthepen, for instance, has the potential to be one of the most valuable royal equine assets for many years. He is entered in both the 2,000 Guineas on 6 May – the same day as the king’s coronation – and the Derby on 3 June, two of British racing’s five Classic races, and victory in either, never mind both, would immediately increase his value to many millions of pounds. A fatal injury a week later, however, would wipe that out at a stroke.
Breeders are buying tickets for a genetic lottery, albeit with the knowledge of what a future foal’s parents have already achieved. In art terms, it is a little like buying dozens of unsigned, halfway-decent canvases in flea markets and hoping that one turns out to be a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci.
The Guardian has published the full methodology used to value the king’s horses. After building as complete a list as possible of the royal stock, we made conservative estimates based on comparable sales, including last autumn’s auction of royal horses. Younger stock that has yet to race has been valued according to the median sale price of their sire’s offspring at the major yearling sales in Britain and Ireland last year.
The racing ability of a thoroughbred is assessed and recorded throughout its career, and the pedigree of every racehorse can be traced back to the late 1700s, providing a wealth of information to draw on when estimating their value.
But that data provides only a snapshot. Whether estimating the value of an individual horse, or the overall worth of an extensive racing and breeding operation, such as that built by the queen over 70 years, there are many variables to consider and they can change daily. A major success – for example, in the Derby – could conceivably make a single horse in a 50-strong racing string worth as much, or more, than the other 49.
To capture the best discernible estimate for the current point in time, the Guardian first broke down the king’s remaining bloodstock assets into three groups: pre-racing stock, horses in training and breeding stock.
Within those groups, it was then possible to separate pre-racing stock into foals – born, or due to be born, in the spring of 2023 – and yearlings, born last year. These horses were valued according to the median sale price of their stallion’s yearlings at the major European bloodstock auctions in Britain, France and Ireland in the autumn of 2022.
In the first three months of the year, the value of the royal string’s two-year-old horses will depend largely on their pedigree, but those aged three and above normally have more form – and an official “rating” – to assess their racing ability. The recent auction prices of horses of the same age and similar rating are a useful guide, although horses with racing experience are generally sold later in the year.
For breeding stock, value initially depends on pedigree and form but can then be affected by the racing performance of a mare’s offspring and her age. Again, the sale prices of similar stock at recent auctions, including those from the Royal Stud, were used as a guide.
The moment of peak value for many well-bred thoroughbreds is many months before they have set foot on a racecourse. Europe’s most expensive yearlings – horses that were foaled the previous spring – sell every autumn at Tattersalls’ “Book 1” sale – and they are valued by the market on looks and pedigree alone.
Those fathered by a stallion with a proven record of siring big-race winners – including Frankel, Dubawi, Sea The Stars and Kingman – fetch the highest value. Thanks to equine matings planned by his mother in the final years of her life, Charles has inherited foals and yearlings by all four of those stallions.
Meanwhile, breeding stock at Sandringham presents even greater potential value for the king. The broodmares (female horses old enough to breed) are the bedrock of any owner-breeder’s operation, and several of the stars of the late queen’s group of mares – including Estimate, Approximate, Diploma and Nathra – could conceivably command seven-figure price tags.
With about 20 mares, including new recruits to the breeding stock, still believed to be at Sandringham, the king’s breeding stock alone could be valued at at least £10m. Based on the median auction price of their sire’s offspring, unraced foals and yearlings could be worth £6.5m, while prices realised for racing stock at auction suggest royal horses in training could be worth at least £10m. The king also has a handful of National Hunt horses, including Steal a March, who was due to run at the recent Cheltenham festival but sustained an injury in the buildup, while two former royal horses stand as stallions at stud farms in Britain and France. In all, this suggests King Charles has inherited bloodstock assets worth at least £27m.
