March is not going out like a lamb at HorseTourneys.
For the second consecutive weekend, we’ll offer an NHC doubleheader—one qualifier on Saturday, one on Sunday—along with valuable qualifiers to The BIG One, the Keeneland Grade One Gamble and Spring Challenge, Monmouth, Wynn, Surfside and the Horse Player World Series (your last chance to get to The Orleans!).
But this weekend we are mixing in a $50,000 Guaranteed All-Optional cash game, a Kentucky Derby Betting Championship qualifier and a First Chance for you to qualify for the Treasure Island Wager to Win tournaments on May 19-20 (Preakness weekend). For the most part, we will be Picking & Praying, but there are some live-format events as well.
The big weekend tourneys get started on Friday with our recently increased $7,500 Guaranteed game. As per usual on Fridays, it is a Pick & Pray that pays $3,750 to the winner and prizes down to fifth place. There will be 10 contest races—Oaklawn’s 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th; Aqueduct’s 7th and 9th, and Santa Anita’s 3rd through 6th. The entry fee is $190.
Saturday brings with it six featured games, and which one is most important depends on one’s point of view.
First there’s our first of two NHC qualifiers on the weekend. Saturday’s guarantees two seats and could offer as many as three. Entry is $190, and it is a Pick & Pray.
We have a very large and relatively unique cash game on Saturday. It’s a live-format, all-optional event with a Guaranteed purse of $50,000 with $22,500 going to the victor and payoffs down to 12th place. The entry fee is $495 with a limit of 112 entries. We’ll publish a list of 20 eligible contest races from which you must make 10 plays. Which 10 you choose are up to you. You can play your 10 best selections…or save plays for the end…or try to catch the competition napping at the outset. Regardless of your strategy, if you run into a race you just don’t like, no problem…just skip it. As one skillful player told me this week, it could even be construed as something of a tune-up for next weekend’s Horse Player World Series.
Speaking of the March 30-April 1 Horse Player World Series, Saturday is your last chance to qualify for it here at HorseTourneys. Our entry-only HPWS Pick & Pray costs $87 to play with one in 20 winning a $1,500 seat. It’s a great way to add your name to the dozens who will be representing HorseTourneys at The Orleans. Or to gain an additional entry in what is likely to be a large field competing for the purse that could reach seven figures out in Vegas.
If California is more your thing, we’ll also host our second Surfside qualifier of 2017. The spring 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 $500 in travel). There will be one winner per each 20 entries of this Pick & Pray with the entry fee set at $98.
And there’s also a $69 qualifier on Saturday to Keeneland’s April 22 $400 Spring Challenge where two NHC seats, one BCBC seat and cash will be played for.
On to Sunday, which will include eight featured tourneys.
Sunday, of course, is the second day of our back-to-back NHC qualifiers. This one will offer three packages guaranteed and a maximum of five. Entries are capped at 325. Of course, you must be an NHC Tour member to win NHC packages, so register now at ntra.com if you haven’t already done so.
Last Sunday’s Guaranteed qualifier to The BIG One attracted just 20 entries, so pay special attention to this Sunday’s. Someone is certain to win an all-inclusive package (entry, travel, hotel & more) no matter how many take part. Entries (at $390 each) are capped at 35, with up to five $300 consolation prizes also available.
Making its return to the HorseTourneys lineup after a one-week break is a qualifier for the Kentucky Derby Betting Championship. This one costs $495 with one in 40 winning a $12,000 entry plus hotel, ticket and amenities for Oaks and Derby days at Churchill Downs, along with $500 in travel. Note that (unlike most of our other big tourneys this weekend) this contest will be run in live format (since our most recent KDBC tourney was a Pick & Pray).
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 slate also includes a qualifier to the very popular 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 Oceanport, N.J. competition.
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 swanky Las Vegas tournament on August 4-5. This one also costs $116 to play.
Our Sunday Guaranteed cash game remains at its lofty $10,000 level. The winner receives $5,000 and prizes go down to 5th place. This one costs $195 to play with an entry limit of 57.
And no Sunday is complete at HorseTourneys without a $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 accumulates the most mythical winnings, based on $1 payoffs, takes home the cash. No price caps in our exacta games.
As usual, we will be offering a bevy of low-cost feeders where you can earn you way in to many of the big Saturday/Sunday tournaments. And if you’re feeling lucky, you can take a single set of picks and enter them in multiple tournaments (especially easy on a Pick & Pray weekend). This strategy worked out nicely for Bill Roth last Sunday. He entered one set of picks in seven tourneys, won six of them and finished second in the other (a three-seat NHC qualifier).
I’m not sure if anyone will be able to match Roth’s feat. But it will be fun finding out. Good luck this weekend!