This weekend—a predominantly live-format weekend—has a little bit of everything: Another cash game with increased purses, a blowout mega qualifier, a first chance to qualify at one place, a last chance to qualify at another place…
What it has a whole lot of is NHC seats—as many as eight—spread out over two tournaments, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. These NHC qualifiers make up two of 16 (!) featured events this weekend.
The HorseTourneys “Sweet 16” gets started on Friday with a newly increased $7,500 Guaranteed game (up from $6,500 last Friday). It is a Pick & Pray that pays $3,750 to the winner and prizes down to fifth place. There will be 10 contest races—Aqueduct’s 6th, 7th and 9th, Tampa’s 8th through 10th and Oaklawn’s 5th through 8th. Entry is $190.
We have five top featured-schedule games on Saturday and three of them are especially gigantic.
First there’s the NHC qualifier, which guarantees three seats and could offer as many as five. Entry is $165.
Saturday is also our highly-anticipated HPWS Blowout, with one in just 10 entries (at $172 each) winning a seat to the Horse Player World Series, now less than two weeks away. The Blowout and the NHC qualifier are both live-format events.
We have a very big cash Pick & Pray game on Saturday. This one has a purse of $25,000 with $12,500 to the victor and payoffs down to 8th place. The entry fee is $ with a limit of 107 entries.
There’s also a $69 qualifier to Keeneland’s April 22 $400 Spring Challenge where two NHC seats, one BCBC seat and cash will be played for.
And rounding things out on Saturday is a last-chance opportunity to qualify for the Hawthorne Spring NHC tourneys on March 24-25, which go as two separate one-day tourneys with a $400 live bankroll (no entry fee) required each day. Winners of our qualifier (one per just 15 entries at $62 per entry) will receive $800 in bankroll cash—enough for both days. Four NHC seats and two BCBC entries will be up for grabs over the course of the weekend.
Contest races for Saturday’s featured tourneys are the 9th, 12th and 13th at Gulfstream, the 6th, 9th and 10th at Oaklawn, the 6th, 7th and 8th at Fair Grounds, and the 2nd, 4th and 5th from Hawthorne—12 races in all.
We’ll also host another quick $2,000 Guaranteed Saturday Night Live tourney, using nine races from Hawthorne, Charles Town and Turfway. Last Saturday night’s two grander went as an overlay to players, so be on the lookout for another such opportunity.
On Saturday the focus is on quality. On Sunday the focus is on…quality again, but quantity too! We’ll have no fewer than 10 featured contests this day, an unofficial HorseTourneys record. I need two separate screen shots to fit them all in with a readable font size:
Sunday, of course, is the second day of our back-to-back NHC qualifiers. This one will offer two packages guaranteed and a maximum of three. Entries are capped at 195. Note that you must be an NHC Tour member to win NHC packages.
It should come as no surprise that we will again host a Sunday qualifier to The BIG One with one all-inclusive package (entry, travel, hotel & more) guaranteed to be awarded no matter how many take part. Entries (at $390 each) are capped at 35, with up to five $300 consolation prizes also available.
Sunday also marks the return of Del Mar to our qualifying lineup. As most of you likely know by now, any HorseTourneys Del Mar qualifier who goes on to win the 2017 Del Mar Handicapping Challenge will earn an additional bonus of $10,000 in HorseTourneys site credit, payable over a six-month period. (The site-credit bonus must be played.) And all throughout the weekend—and beyond—we will offer low-cost feeders to the Del Mar qualifiers with 4% rebates built in. We hope you take advantage of this aggressive, player-friendly offer.
Not far from Del Mar is Surfside Race Place, and on Sunday we will host our first Surfside qualifier of 2017. The first of several Surfside tourneys this year will take place April 7-9, and they go as three separate one-day tourneys, with $5,500 in cash and two NHC seats available each day. Win our qualifier and you’ll earn entry fees for all three days (plus travel). There will be one winner per each 20 entries with the entry fee set at $98.
Our Sunday guaranteed cash game remains at its recently boosted level of $10,000. (It was raised last week.). The winner receives $5,000 and prizes go down to 5th place. And we’ll, of course, come back with another Sunday $1,500 Guaranteed Exacta Box tournament for $54 ($600 to the victor). You play a three-horse exacta box in each of the 12 races and whoever racks up the highest score, based on $1 payoffs, takes home the cash. No price caps in this game. This game was also an overlaid contest last week, so if everyone is concentrating on the more lucrative games, you might be able to vulture in and get a positive-expectation play in on this one.
Now let’s get back to our Sunday qualifiers—there are still four more of those to cover, and they’re all excellent ones.
The Horse Player World Series Blowout is Saturday, but the HPWS candle still burns on Sunday with an entry-only Horse Player World Series game. Entry costs $87 with one in 20 winning a $1,500 seat to The Orleans in Las Vegas later this month.
There’s also a Sunday qualifier to the April 23 Keeneland Grade One Gamble. Five NHC spots, one full BCBC seat and three partial BCBC spots (plus cash prizes paid to the top 10 finishers) will be at stake on April 23 (the day after the Keeneland $400 Spring Challenge). Entries to our Sunday qualifier cost $162 each with one in 25 winning a $3,000 Grade One Gamble entry fee (live bankroll and dining included) plus $500 for travel to Lexington.
Sunday’s jam-packed menu also includes a qualifier to the Monmouth Park Pick Your Prize tournament (June 3) where up to 13 NHC spots and four $10,000 BCBC entries will be up for grabs, as well as a variety of cash prizes. The order of finish determines the order in which Monmouth winners “pick their prizes”. Entry fees for our Sunday Monmouth qualifier have been set at $116 with one winner per 25 entries moving on to the Jersey Shore.
Last but not least, our Sunday featured schedule includes a qualifier to the $200,000 Wynn Handicapping Challenge, with one in 20 winning a $2,000 entry to the popular Las Vegas event on August 4-5. This one also costs $116 to play.
As usual, we will be offering a slew of low-cost feeders where you can earn you way in to many of the big Saturday/Sunday tournaments—including some taking place next weekend (March 25-26). One of those March 25 qualifiers for which we’ve already begun offering feeders is our first 2017 Treasure Island Wager to Win qualifier. One in 25 entries on March 25 will win $1,000 entries to both days of the May 19-20 (Preakness weekend) tourneys at Treasure Island, plus $500 for travel. So keep that in mind for this weekend.
As for this weekend, we hope the “buzzer beaters” go your way—both on the court and at the track. Good luck!