Memorial Day weekend comes right on the heels of Preakness weekend this year, and we’re ready to help tournament players celebrate and enjoy with four days’ worth of tourneys to keep you engaged in between the barbecues.
We get things started on Friday with a $7,500 Guaranteed Pick & Pray with prizes down to fifth place and $3,750 to the winner.
The entry fee is $190, and contest races are the 6th through 9th at Churchill Downs; the 5th through 8th at Woodbine and the 8th and 9th from Belmont—10 races in all. , and the 3rd and 5th from Arlington.
By Saturday, almost all of you should have the day off, and so we bring HorsePlayers into the featured mix to give you even more to pick from.
The Saturday HorsePlayers Feature is a 1-seat-guaranteed Pick & Pray qualifier to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge with an entry fee of $179.
But you’ll also want to devote a computer window to HorseTourneys as well, of course.
At HorseTourneys, we have a 2-seat-guaranteed live-format NHC qualifier, and if we get enough people (195 or more), we’ll toss in a third seat. Entry fee here is $165.
Saturday is also your final chance to qualify for the popular June 3 Monmouth Pick Your Prize tournament. We’ll award one package per every 25 entries taking part. This one costs $116 to play. Do well at Monmouth and you get to choose from an array of BCBC seats, NHC berths and cash prizes.
For just $58, you may enter our Gold Coast Summer Classic qualifier on Saturday with one in 20 entrants earning a $1,000 package ($500 entry + $500 travel).
But if you’re all about the money, then you will likely focus on our live-format $15,000 Guaranteed tourney with $7,000 going to the winner and payoffs down to 7th place. Entries here cost $195 with a limit of 86.
Sunday showcases direct qualifiers at HorseTourneys to three lucrative on-site tournaments…and a lot more behind that.
We’ll offer a guaranteed qualifier (live format) to the Del Mar Handicapping Challenge for $350 with the winner earning a $7,500 package, plus a $10,000 HorseTourneys site credit bonus if the winner goes on to finish first at Del Mar.
There’s also a Sunday Pick & Pray to the Belmont Stakes Handicapping Challenge. One in 35 entries (at $410 each) will earn a $10,500 package to the Belmont blowout on the Friday and Saturday of Belmont Stakes weekend, in what promises to be one of the best betting cards of the year.
No mention of lucrative onsite tournaments is complete without a discussion of The BIG One at Laurel. The event takes place in September with a maximum of 57 players competing for some 20 seats to the BCBC, NHC and Horse Player World Series. There’s plenty of cash involved too, including a $500,000 bonus to the winner if he or she wins the NHC. We’ll offer a Sunday live-format qualifier to The BIG One for $390 with the winner receiving an all-inclusive package incorporating hotel accommodations, a welcome dinner, lunch and open bar both days at Laurel and more.
Cash gamers will enjoy our $10,000 Guaranteed game (live format this week) with entries (capped at 57) available for $195—and our Sunday $1,500 Guaranteed Exacta game (live format as usual) with $600 to the winner.
We’re not done discussing live-event qualifiers though. On Sunday, there are also direct qualifying tourneys for the Arlington Handicapping Challenge ($2,500 package) and the Wynn Handicapping Challenge ($2,000 entry only). Both are live-format events with the Arlington contest carrying an entry fee of $118 and the Wynn a couple of bucks left at $116.
There’s also a very important qualifier at HorsePlayers on Sunday.
If you didn’t manage to qualify for the NHC on Saturday on HorseTourneys, you can try your luck again Sunday at HorsePlayers. Same parameters and price point—except that this one will be a live-format game.
On Monday, HorsePlayers is back in action with its second Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier of the weekend.
This time around, it’s a live-format tourney and once again, one $10,000 BCBC entry is guaranteed to be awarded regardless of participation levels.
Back here at HorseTourneys, we’ll be offering three special competitions on Memorial Day.
On the qualifying front, we’ll host our first Gold Coast entry-only tourney of the year with entries costing just $38 and one in 15 winning. This is an economical way to earn a spot at a fun Las Vegas event and an attractive means of adding to your portfolio if you are fortunate enough to have already one of our Gold Coast packages.
For cash players, we are offering two real-money games with varying purses, entry fees and formats.
Our headliner is a $5,000 live-format tourney for $185 with $3,000 to the winner and cash prizes down to 4th place. Entries are capped at 30.
Or you could choose to participate instead in Monday’s $2,500 Pick & Pray game for $89. Here the winner receives $1,250 and prizes are paid down to 3rd place with entries limited to a total of 31.
Or you could choose to play in both of them!
Perusers of the HorseTourneys site may also notice that we have begun offering feeders to both the Surfside (July 14-16) and Hawthorne (August 11-12) on-site tournaments. These feeders cost just $22 to play and feed into our first Hawthorne and Surfside direct qualifiers of 2017 on Sunday June 4.
We hope that you can join us for at least part of the Memorial Day weekend fun. And that you also take a moment to remember the men and women who fought to preserve America’s freedom.
Enjoy the holiday weekend!