SALARYSPORT
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SHOW JUMPING · 22,099 CHEQUES

What a show jumping class actually pays

Every cheque in this section, sorted end to end. The median is £85, and 19,606 of them are under £1,000.

The sport that reaches a television audience is four or five classes a year with seven figure funds. The sport that fills the calendar pays this instead, and both halves are on the same result sheets.

MEDIAN CHEQUE £85
MEDIAN WINNER £427
CHEQUES 22,099
UNDER £1,000 88.7%
TOP TENTH FROM £1,175
PAID OUT £22.9m

How many cheques land in each band

Every paid placing in the section, counted

22,099 cheques

Under £100 12k
£100 to £250 3,966
£250 to £500 2,148
£500 to £1,000 1,547
£1,000 to £2,500 1,266
£2,500 to £5,000 575
£5,000 to £10,000 350
£10,000 to £25,000 179
£25,000 to £50,000 57
£50,000 to £100,000 28
Over £100,000 38
Band Cheques Share of cheques Share of the money Money in the band
Under £100 11,945 54.1% 2% £459,938
£100 to £250 3,966 17.9% 2.7% £621,662
£250 to £500 2,148 9.7% 3.2% £734,335
£500 to £1,000 1,547 7% 4.6% £1,062,941£1.1m
£1,000 to £2,500 1,266 5.7% 8.7% £1,993,249£2.0m
£2,500 to £5,000 575 2.6% 9.3% £2,120,998£2.1m
£5,000 to £10,000 350 1.6% 10.5% £2,404,445£2.4m
£10,000 to £25,000 179 0.8% 11.7% £2,680,274£2.7m
£25,000 to £50,000 57 0.3% 8.4% £1,934,516£1.9m
£50,000 to £100,000 28 0.1% 8.7% £1,989,961£2.0m
Over £100,000 38 0.2% 30.2% £6,913,696£6.9m

The two share columns are the page in two numbers. Over £100,000 accounts for 0.2% of the cheques and 30.2% of the money, while the largest band by count is Under £100 with 11,945 of them in it.

Where the money sits, band by band

The same bands, weighed rather than counted

£22,916,015 in all

Under £100 £460k
£100 to £250 £622k
£250 to £500 £734k
£500 to £1,000 £1.1m
£1,000 to £2,500 £2.0m
£2,500 to £5,000 £2.1m
£5,000 to £10,000 £2.4m
£10,000 to £25,000 £2.7m
£25,000 to £50,000 £1.9m
£50,000 to £100,000 £2.0m
Over £100,000 £6.9m

Half of everything the sport has paid sits in the top 0.7% of cheques, each of them £19,320 or larger. The other half is shared out across 21,946 placings, which is the part of the sport that has to pay for itself.

The shape of a cheque

Percentiles across every paid placing

22,099 cheques

Where it sits Amount
The bottom tenth £15
The bottom quarter £30
The median cheque £85
The mean cheque £1,037
The top quarter £276
The top tenth £1,175
The top one per cent £13,526

The mean sits at £1,037 against a median of £85. That gap is why the median is the number to read: one Grand Prix in a few hundred classes moves an average enough to describe a sport nobody is competing in.

What a class pays at each level

The star rating is the price list

7 levels

Level Classes Median cheque Median winner Median last place Prize money
CSI5* 124 £1,124 £7,231 £241 £14,780,664£14.8m
International, no star rating 226 £40 £214 £15 £432,087
CSI4* 71 £500 £3,205 £128 £1,690,022£1.7m
CSI3* 173 £423 £3,300 £85 £2,651,359£2.7m
CSI2* 325 £103 £481 £37 £2,196,855£2.2m
National 272 £96 £171 £64 £492,612
CSI1* 480 £34 £256 £13 £672,411

What a career looks like, not a cheque

Prize money per rider across the whole section

3,331 riders

Where the rider sits Prize money on record
The bottom quarter £73
The median rider £262
The top tenth £7,703
The top one per cent £124,854

1,068 of the 3,331 riders in this section have been paid exactly once.

What the sport pays out each season

Every class of every year added together

8 seasons

Frequently asked questions

What does a show jumping class actually pay?

The median cheque across 22,099 paid placings is £85. The median winner of a class takes £427 and the median last place inside the money takes £30.

How many show jumping cheques are small?

18,059 of 22,099 are under £500, which is 81.7% of every cheque the sport has written, and 19,606 are under £1,000, which is 88.7%.

How top-heavy is show jumping prize money?

Half of all the money in this section sits in the top 0.7% of cheques, every one of them £19,320 or larger. The other half is spread across 21,946 placings.

What does an average show jumper earn?

There is no wage to average. Taking prize money instead, the median career in this section is £262 and the ninetieth percentile is £7,703. 1,068 of the 3,331 riders on record have been paid exactly once.

Why is the average cheque bigger than the median?

Because a handful of classes are enormous. The mean cheque is £1,037 against a median of £85, and the gap is one Grand Prix in every few hundred classes pulling the arithmetic upwards.

Is a placed round worth the entry fee?

Often not. An entry fee is charged per horse per class, the stabling and transport are charged for the week, and a cheque at the bottom of the money is smaller than any of them. The rounds that pay for a week are the ones at the top of the sheet.

Where to next

The levels, the shows and the riders behind these figures

Every level

The shows

The fifty richest riders

The rest of the section