There were a lot of happy winners at HorseTourneys on Saturday.
Daniel Kaplan nailed three of the last four winners to win our Horse Player World Series qualifier. And since two HPWS entries were up for grabs, our runner-up, Bill Downes (track announcer at Indiana Grand) was pretty pumped as well.
Downes wasn’t the only happy HorseTourneyor to take to Twitter last weekend. When Jobby Blevins won our $12,500 Guaranteed event ($6,250 to the victor) for the second time in four weeks, Jobby’s #1 supporter not only helped spread the word…she also issued a warning:
Scores were particularly high, as might be expected, in our 3-seat-guaranteed NHC qualifier on Saturday.
When the dust cleared, it was Douglas Draper, John Marino and John Garofano Jr. punching their tickets to Treasure Island in January.
And it was Mark Ansley and Joe Koury who will be heading to Vegas later this month to play in the Orleans Fall Classic by virtue of their 1-2 finish on Saturday. They both win a $500 entry plus $750 in travel.
On Sunday, the Twin Spires Online Championship qualifier was far from our most lucrative tourney, but it featured our most eye-popping score.
Stephen Diaz’s tally of $115.00 in the Twin Spires contest would have also won every other multi-track contest we offered that day by about $27 or more. Diaz ran off the screen, but the photo for 2nd, 3rd and 4th was important because it was a 4-spot tourney. Kimberly Shortleff, John Northern and Michael Odorisio picked up the pieces in those three slots.
Fortunately for Hesham Ragab, Diaz sat out the $7,500 guaranteed tourney. The left the $3,750 winner’s share to Hesham, who amassed his $82.90 score from just three winners.
The aforementioned John Northern did opt to play in multiple tournaments and it paid off for him. Using the exact same picks that got him a Twin Spires Online Championship entry, John also earned a valuable $3,500 package to the Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge by finishing second to winner Robert Flaska.
In other Sunday action, Kevin Willet ($81.80) grabbed a highly desirable $4,500 package to the Del Mar Fall Classic. And John Verdin hit the last race exacta of $61.30 ($1 payoff) in Santa Anita race 6 to win $600 in our $1,500 guaranteed exacta box game.
Some quick reminders for the week ahead:
Saturday will be your last chance to qualify for the Orleans Fall Classic. And that day, we’ll also be hosting a special $25,000 guaranteed game plus a 2-seat-guaranteed NHC qualfier which was a late addition to the calendar. So you’ll want to be playing on the 8th. And on Sunday, the 9th, it’s your last chance to win a $3,500 package to Keeneland where, the following week, there will be cash, NHC berths and BCBC berths aplenty.
Have a great first full week of October.