To those of you who have locked up spots for the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge—congratulations! To those who, as of yet, have not—there’s still time…but not much. This is your last weekend to secure a $10,000 entry to racing’s most prestigious live-bankroll tournament. HorsePlayers will offer a total of four guaranteed spots—one each on Friday and Sunday and two on Saturday.
But this weekend is about way more than just the BCBC. In fact, it may offer something of an opportunity.
If you have your eye on qualifying for another rich brick-and-mortar contest around the U.S.—or have designs on one of our five-figure, guaranteed cash games—this could be a great weekend to catch the competition preserving their bankrolls for Breeders’ Cup weekend (or otherwise taking the weekend off).
We start the weekend off at HorseTourneys on Friday with a tournament that’s sure to attract a nice gathering.
It’s a $75 NHC Pick & Pray with two spots guaranteed. Is it easy to win? No. But if Friday is “your day,” you can qualify for the NHC for a relative pittance.
Then there’s our always-popular $6,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray with pool-style payoffs that could mean a total prize pool of as much as $10,000 depending on how many entries are attracted. But it will be worth at least $6,000 no matter how few participate, so this might be a good one to monitor closely in case other players are “resting.” The entry fee is $190.
Contest races are the 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th from Keeneland; the 1st, 4th and 5th from Santa Anita; and the 7th, 8th and 9th from Woodbine—10 races in all.
Using the same races, HorsePlayers will host a Friday Low Ratio BCBC Pick & Pray qualifier with one $10,000 entry guaranteed, and one entry per 23 (at $500 each) moving on to the following Friday’s BCBC.
Two more of those Guaranteed BCBC seats will be available Saturday at HorsePlayers.
You can play in a Guaranteed BCBC qualifier on Saturday for $179. Or you could take part in the year’s final $1,000 Super Qualifier with a kind 1 in 11 winning ratio. Both of these BCBC games will operate in live-format this week.
Back at HorseTourneys…
…two more guaranteed NHC seats are at stake on Saturday in a traditional, $165 live-format competition with 1 in 65 moving on to Treasure Island.
For cash specialists, Saturday offers a live-format, $25,000 Guaranteed tourney with $12,500 to the winner and prizes down to 8th place. The entry fee is $260 with a cap of 107 entries.
Or, for just $58, you can secure your spot at the Aqueduct Challenge. (Last week’s first Aqueduct qualifier was, as the Breeders’ Cup folks like to say, well-subscribed.) One in 10 will win a $500 entry to The Big A.
Contest races for this and the above Saturday afternoon HT/HP featured tourneys are the 7th through 10th (all stakes!) at Belmont; the 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th from Santa Anita; and the 7th through 10th at Keeneland, where it’s closing day—12 races all together.
On to Sunday, when we have eight featured tourneys scheduled:
If you haven’t punched your ticket to the NHC yet, there’s a Guaranteed NHC Super Qualifier Sunday for a $500 entry fee. This Pick & Pray offers the best winning ratio of the weekend’s NHC events—1 in just 21 will win…with one NHC seat guaranteed. With others possibly looking ahead to the Breeders’ Cup, it might behoove one to see what’s right in front of one’s nose!
Another great place to qualify for the NHC is at Hawthorne on Thanksgiving weekend. That’s when Hawthorne hosts its fall NHC Super Qualifier. For an entry fee of $87 on Sunday, you can win $800 in entry fees for this Chicagoland contest staple.
If you prefer warmer contest sites, there’s a qualifier on Sunday for the December 9 Caribbean Classic Betting Championship (even the name sounds warm) at Gulfstream. The Caribbean Classic Betting Championship is a 100% payback, live-bankroll event where you could win seats to the NHC or Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship.
We’ll also host a Saturday qualifier (live-format) for the fast-approaching Del Mar Fall Classic on November 11-12, the weekend after Breeders’ Cup. One entry in 25—at $236 each—will earn a $5,000 package. The only thing better than a weekend at Del Mar for the Breeders’ Cup is two weekends at Del Mar!
We also offer a Sunday qualifier to the Horse Player World Series for $87. One of every 20 entries will earn a $1,500 entry to the early-spring “major” in Las Vegas.
Cash game lovers will surely target our $15,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray with $7,000 to the winner and payouts down to 7th. Entry is $195 with a limit of 86 entries. Again, on the weekend before a big weekend like Breeders’ Cup, pay extra attention to any tournament marked “Guaranteed.” Doing so could be beneficial to your bankroll.
And our Sunday Exacta game will be guaranteed at $2,000 though it could grow as high as $5,000 depending on how many take part. Entry fees for the Sunday three-horse-box game are $72 each.
The Sunday feature at HorsePlayers is the (very) Last Chance BCBC Qualifier, a “Low Ratio” Pick & Pray with one entry per 23—at $500 each—earning a $10,000 spot to the big contest next week. One entry is guaranteed to be awarded.
Also on the weekend menu is a slew of feeders for the two big cash tourneys that we’ve scheduled for Breeders’ Cup weekend. We have a $15,000 Guaranteed Pool-Style tourney on Friday that could have a pot of up to $35,000, and there’s a $50,000 Guaranteed Breeders’ Cup Saturday game that could grow to $75,000. You can qualify to either for as little as $29.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the final weekend of October.