We were back to predominantly Pick & Prays during the weekend of June 30-July 2. And, not too surprisingly, we saw a couple of players parlay one good score into multiple victories.
Arguably the most impressive double-up came on Saturday when Lawrence Kahlden’s fine score of $125.80 accounted for the top spot not just in the day’s $15,000 Guaranteed event…
…but in Saturday’s Wynn Entry-Only tourney as well.
Congratulations as well to Christopher “All In” Hayes and Mike Forzano who also earned $2,000 Wynn entries for their Saturday efforts.
Getting back to Lawrence, for his Saturday entry-fee outlay of $311, he pulled in $9,000 in returns–$7,000 of that in cash—finishing first in two of the day’s five featured tournaments.
As well as Lawrence played, the day’s top score (and it wasn’t close) was turned in by Wendy Long in the Saturday NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.
Wendy registered five wins and two placings—including one that paid $19.80 to place—to amass her gaudy total. And Chad Anshelewitz racked up an extremely impressive tally in his own right, $152.60, to lay claim to the day’s other NHC package. It was nearly a hat trick for Lawrence Kahlden. But while he did manage to improve upon his Pick & Pray score in this live-format event, there was just no catching Long and Anshelewitz.
Anthony Trezza was seeing things very clearly on Friday.
He got the weekend off to a rousing start with a handy win—good for $3,750—in Friday’s regular feature, the $7,500 Guaranteed Pick & Pray.
There were no fewer than 10 featured tourneys on Sunday, July 2. David Nelson took a swing at a few of them and while his score of $60.80 will set no Horse Tourneys records, it was still sufficient to land him in the top spot for not one…
…but two Sunday qualifiers.
David will be joined by Marty DeRoin on September 23-24 at Laurel at The BIG One, with both receiving all-inclusive packages including hotel and each eligible for a $500,000 lump sum bonus should they win The BIG One and also go on to win the NHC next February.
David also won the year’s first qualifier to the 2017 Woodbine Mile Handicapping Tournament to be held the week before The BIG One on September 16. David receives his $3,500 (Canadian) buy-in to the Woodbine competition—which includes a $2,000 live betting bankroll—plus $500 (U.S.) for travel. Two NHC spots and two BCBC entries will be on offer at Woodbine. (And should David elect to drive from Woodbine to Laurel, he has the option of stopping at Fort Erie, Finger Lakes, Penn National and Charles Town—all pretty much right on his way!)
He didn’t finish first in two contests like Kahlden and Nelson did, but Les Instone won two nice prizes. He took the $700 top prize in Sunday’s Exacta game with its newly enhanced purse of $2,000 Guaranteed.
Winning our Sunday Exacta tourney is nothing new for Les. He did it twice in May. But he is good at more than just picking three-horse exacta boxes…
…he can do win/place as well. Here he came in second behind Rick Coppola in our last chance qualifier for next weekend’s Arlington Handicapping Challenge. Rick and Les thus head to beautiful Arlington Park armed with $2,500 packages. They will be two of 14 HorseTourneys qualifiers competing in Arlington Heights.
Other notable Sunday performances were turned in by Rick Lough, who captured the $5,000 first prize in our sold-out $10,000 Guaranteed game; Vincent Achilarre and Kevin Willett, who punched their tickets to Vegas in our NHC qualifier; Vic Stauffer and Edward Enborg who won robust $7,500 packages in what was a very tight Del Mar Handicapping Challenge qualifier where, this time, David Nelson’s $60.80 didn’t quite get it done…
…and Mike Sylvester, who finished atop the leaderboard at HorsePlayers in their BCBC qualifier.
One of the other nice things about this particular weekend is that it technically isn’t over yet. There’s a very nice slate of featured, multi-track games on July 4th at HorseTourneys, including a Wynn qualifier and a $7,500 Guaranteed game. Both are Pick & Prays, so there’s no need for them to interfere with your existing Independence Day plans. And there’s also a wide array of single-track tourneys starring Belmont, Parx, Canterbury, Gulfstream, Santa Anita and Lone Star.
Be bold with your plays, but be safe with your Fourth. And have fun with both!