Good news/bad news: The bad news is that after Saturday, we’ll have to wait until April to play Keeneland again. The good news is that we’ll have plenty of great Keeneland Tourneys (multi-track and solo) through Saturday. Plus another exciting NHC qualifier this Sunday.
Things get rolling in earnest on Friday with our $5,000 guaranteed game. It will be a Pick & Pray, as will most of our big tourneys this weekend. As we have warned in recent weeks, these Friday games with Keeneland included are very popular, so enter early. Contest races have already been determined: Belmont’s 6th through 9th; Keeneland’s 7th through 10th; and Laurel’s 10th and 11th (11 races in all). As a guaranteed game, full prizes will be paid down to 4th place regardless of participation, and the winner gets $2,500. Entry fee is $185.
Our most lucrative tournament of the weekend takes place on Saturday when we host our low-takeout $25,000 guaranteed contest. This Pick & Pray event pays down to 8th place with $12,500 up top for the winner. Entries are $260 each and capped at 107. This would be a great way to give some serious padding to your Breeders’ Cup bankroll. Of course, full prizes will be paid out regardless of headcount. (Last Sunday, our $7,500 game paid out at a healthy overlay to players!)
We also have an entry-only Horse Player World Series qualifier on Saturday for $87. We’ll award one entry ($1,500 value) per every 20 contestants. There will also be a direct qualifier to the November 26 Twin Spires Online Championships with one winner per 15 entries (at $58 each) moving on to the “cyberfinal”. These Twin Spires qualifiers have been popular with three or four winners each weekend. So you certainly don’t need to “sweep the card” to do well here. Here’s a visual of our big Saturday games:
On to Sunday…
Sunday’s featured event is again a 2-package-guaranteed NHC direct qualifier that could offer up to four NHC packages depending on participation. We will give away one package per every 70 entries but at least two no matter what. Only five more opportunities remain (including this Sunday) to qualify for the 2017 NHC at HorseTourneys. (After that, you’re on your own!) Entries this week are once again just $160. Last Sunday’s NHC qualifier was extremely exciting with Roger Cettina placing two entries in the top three (only the second time someone has done that in an NHC qualifier at HorseTourneys). Roger was only able to lay claim to one of the three available NHC packages because a) NHC rules only allow for one person to win one package per qualifier plus b) Roger had already qualified for the NHC once this year, so the one package gave him his maximum complement of two. As a result, the third NHC package awarded last Sunday dropped to our 4th-place finisher. And you just may see more of this in our subsequent five NHC qualifiers. As players max out on NHC entries, most still play to amass more NHC Tour points. When you see one of these players ahead of you (and we do our best to denote this in our real-time standings), you have the comfort of knowing they are playing for Tour points only. So that is one fewer player for you to worry about in terms of winning an NHC seat.
Sunday will also offer another chance to qualify for the November 25-26 Hawthorne Fall NHC Super Qualifier. Hawthorne will run two separate single-day tourneys costing $350 each day. A win in a HorseTourneys direct qualifier gets you entry fees for both days ($700 total) plus another $500 in travel. Entry is $93 with one of every 15 moving on to Chicagoland for Thanksgiving weekend.
Also scheduled for Sunday is a qualifier for the Del Mar Fall Classic (a whopping $4,500 value) for $212 and our $7,500 guaranteed cash game where you could earn $3,750 for a $190 entry fee. Again, this tourney went off at a healthy overlay last week. And perhaps it could do so again, especially if some of our normal Sunday players suffer from a Keeneland hangover!
Last but not least we’ll mention our Sunday $1,500 guaranteed exacta box game. If you’re not familiar with these, try one. We’ll be having one on Breeders’ Cup Saturday, so this would be a great way to sharpen your exacta box tourney skills ahead of the big weekend at Santa Anita.
Here’s an at-a-glance look at Sunday’s featured action:
And here’s hoping your Breeders’ Cup “preps” this weekend are winning ones. Good luck!