When I was in Year 9, I came head and shoulders above the whole year in our exams, can't recall working especially hard for it, but I think I did do some revision.
Come Prizegiving time, several people were summonsed to the head of year's office to be told they could choose a book to be given on the night for 'achievement.' Guess who wasn't chosen?
I was genuinely astonished, then humiliated, then depressed and disheartened. Even people who didn't like me were saying, 'Why aren't you getting a prize?'
I cried and cried at home - not in front of my mum; we didn't do cuddles and comfort - and she made sympathetic noises but did nothing. Nor was there any family celebration to make up for it.
The message I got was that I was invisible, and it didn't made any difference how well I did - I would always be ignored in favour of the pretty girls.
In fact, the same thing happened the next year, but by then I was hardened to it.
The point here, I think, is that sports people who achieve aren't told 'well, it's easy for you, you don't deserve a prize' - that would be ridiculous and obviously unfair to the outstanding sportsman.
I don't see the difference with a naturally clever child - and, by the way, any problems your DH is having with his business shouldn't have a bearing on this. Not to say you should get in to debt over it, of course, but either this is worth celebrating or not, regardless of the adults' problems.