The New York Times

The U.S. Becomes a Global Hub for Horse Racing

Joe Drape

October 31, 2026

Sheikh Fahad Al Thani, chairman of Qatar Racing, one of the largest and most accomplished international horse-breeding operations, spends more time in the United States these days for a good reason: It’s where the money is.

He is a regular at the August horse sale in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., as well as the Keeneland September sales in Lexington, Ky. And this weekend, he’s returning to the bluegrass for the 43rd running of the Breeders’ Cup World Championships, held at Keeneland Race Course and featuring 14 races offering more than $30 million in purse money.

Sheikh Fahad is hardly alone. Seventy-nine international horses were pre-entered for the World Championships in Lexington on Friday and Saturday. They were bred in nine countries and on six continents.

The United States “has become the global center of horse racing,” said Sheikh Fahad, who runs Qatar Racing on behalf of his brothers, all members of Qatar’s ruling family. “The spread of owners that will spend big money is bigger here than most places on earth. And the purse money, day to day, is the strongest in the world.”

For decades, international horsemen rarely crossed one another’s borders. The Japanese kept to their racetracks. The Australians stayed home. The Irish and English blended a bit for big races, but didn’t travel far beyond their two countries. This was partly about tradition and partly about money — most purses were not worth the expense of shipping a horse overseas.

But the grand purses of American races and the rich bloodlines of the country’s horses have helped bring the horsing world increasingly to one place.

This year’s Keeneland September Yearling Sale set a world record for a thoroughbred auction, generating $536.7 million in sales. In 2025, 21 percent of the money was spent by overseas buyers, and 23 percent of yearlings were bought by international owners, said Cormac Breathnach, Keeneland’s senior director of sales operations. In 2022, international buyers accounted for 14 percent of the sales and 16 percent of the yearlings.

A few developments have boosted the American horseracing scene in recent years, including a series of aggressive safety measures for the animals. The Horseracing Integrity and Safety Authority was launched in 2022 to root out and punish cheaters who resort to performance-enhancing drugs.

President Trump’s tax cut and domestic spending law signed in 2025, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, provided another lift. The law allows businesses to immediately deduct the full cost of certain assets, like machinery, equipment and racehorses, to enhance their cash flow.

In its early days, the “World Championships” part of the Breeders’ Cup title was aspirational. Several overseas horses might show up, usually from England or Ireland. But over the past five years, international participation has increased 48 percent. That increase ties directly to a 44 percent increase in international Breeders’ Cup Challenge races — known as “win and you’re in” races.

This year, 95 of them were held in 14 countries. Beyond the winning purse money, horse owners have their entry fees to the Breeders’ Cup races waived, and overseas entrants are given up to $40,000 in travel expenses. In fact, international horses have accounted for 28 Breeders’ Cup World Championships victories over the past five years.

The trainer Mark Prescott campaigned the mare Tiffany in England and Germany for 18 starts over the past five years, winning nine times for $418,000 in earnings. Last month, Tiffany won the Kentucky Turf Cup Invitational Stakes at Kentucky Downs — a Breeders’ Cup Challenge race — earning a $582,000 check and a place in the starting gate for the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Turf race on Saturday.

“You cannot argue with the economics, especially when you have the right horse,” Mr. Prescott said. “The cost of training has gone up with inflation, but the prize money has not in Europe. We do not have America’s government support.”

One of the stars of the World Championships is the Japanese-based but globe-trotting Forever Young. He is the likely favorite in the $7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic, a race he won last year. Forever Young has run a quarter of his 16 races on that track. After winning the Jockey Club Gold Cup last month on opening day of the remade Belmont Park, he stayed in New York to train.

Forever Young, his assistants and his owner feel at home in the United States, the horse’s trainer, Yoshito Yahagi, said.

“Normally when we travel all over the world and we felt a little away, but when we come to America people welcome our horse and we feel really warm from everybody, like we came back home,” he said.

Sheikh Fahad’s Qatar Racing has more than 300 horses in training from Europe, the Middle East and Australia, but, over the past five years, it has expanded its footprint in the United States. His stable has more than 50 horses in training here and more than 30 broodmares in Kentucky to improve its breeding program.

He will send out three runners in the World Championships, including a highly regarded sprinter, Nakatomi. The stable has won two previous Breeders’ Cup races along with the 2020 Kentucky Oaks.

Among the biggest advantages of American racing, Sheikh Fahad said, is the ability to afford to develop a young horse. In England, for example, a maiden race — for horses that have not yet won — might offer a purse equivalent to $5,000, compared with $90,000 to $120,000 in similar races in New York and Kentucky.

“It is beyond better to race in America,” he said.