Tuesday seems like an odd day of the week to preview the upcoming weekend of featured tourneys. But it’s Thanksgiving week and, as far as we’re concerned, that means a five-day weekend. Needless to say, we’ll be ready for you with a little something special each day.
On Wednesday, generally considered the most highly traveled day of the year, we give you good reason to stay put (or at least put off your travel until Thursday morning).
It’s a $2,000 Guaranteed pool-style game (live format) whose total pot could grow to as much as $5,000 if we get the full complement of 72 entries. It closes a touch earlier than most of our Wednesday night featured games—but that’s so we could include the three-stakes troika taking place at Penn National. Mountaineer and Woodbine carry the torch from there. This one costs $79 to play.
Our Turkey Day featured schedule also closes a bit earlier than usual—2:20 p.m. ET—which makes sense since the tracks running that day are all running earlier than usual (except for Charles Town).
Focusing on the day’s best races from Aqueduct, Laurel and Del Mar, our Thanksgiving featured schedule is topped by a $10,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray, and the pot could reach as much as $20,000 depending on participation.
We also offer a Thanksgiving Day Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier for $87. It, too, is a Pick & Pray so that you can get your selections in and devote your attention thereafter to family, friends and food.
And HorsePlayers also offers a Thanksgiving Day repast with its Pick & Pray NHC qualifier.
Contest races are the same as for the HorseTourneys features. Two NHC seats are guaranteed.
You’d think things return to normal on Friday, but it really doesn’t. Because this is no ordinary Friday. It’s Black Friday!
If you’re like me, Black Friday is a synonym for misery. I did the 5:00 am thing once. Never again. And, for the record, the day didn’t really improve to any perceptible degree after the awful beginning. So now, while certain family members do battle at the stores. I stay home and play the races. And so should you!
As a public service, we offer you two Black Friday featured tournaments. And in keeping with the overall Black Friday spirit (such as it is), we offer a special doorbuster of a price.
Yes, it’s a Black Friday NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers with each entry costing just $50. (An announcer on a TV commercial would bellow at this point: IT’S OUR LOWEST NHC QUALIFIER PRICE EVER!!!)
For those taking my advice and staying home on Friday…but who need lots of money for holiday presents thereafter, may we suggest…
…our $6,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray. It’s $190 to play, and as a pool-style game the pot could go well above $6,000 to as much as $10,000.
While the Friday shoppers recover, there’s more cash and tournament seats up for grabs on Saturday.
The richest game of the day is a live-format $20,000 Guaranteed tourney with a potential purse of as much as $30,000. It’s $260 to play and entries are limited to 133.
If last week was any indication, Saturday’s Horse Player World Series full-package qualifier should be very popular. One in 25 will earn a $1,500 entry, four nights at The Orleans and another $500 for travel.
And there’s a “regular” NHC qualifier on tap Saturday for $165.
But there are also a pair of special NHC qualifiers at HorsePlayers on Saturday.
One is our high-end NHC Super Qualifier. It costs $500 to play but one in 21 earn an NHC berth. It’s definitely the path of least resistance for an NHC seat.
The other big Saturday offering at HorsePlayers is a special event restricted to first-year NHC Tour members. And best of all, it’s free.
Again, you must be an NHC Tour member who joined the Tour for the first time in 2017. One seat is guaranteed to be awarded. And a second berth will be given to the highest-finishing contestant who is an active TVG account holder. And by “active,” they mean you must have had some account activity during the past 12 months.
So if you’re an NHC rookie, be sure to play. And if you’re an NHC rookie with an active TVG account, be doubly sure to play!
Sunday brings the long holiday weekend to a conclusion, and it’s topped by the return of an old friend:
Yes, it’s our first Pegasus World Cup qualifier in a few weeks. This is a live-event game in which one in every 30 entries will win a $12,000 buy-in to the big January 26-27 live-bankroll game at Gulfstream.
If you want to play at Gulfstream, but don’t want to wait until January, then take a swing at our Gulfstream Park Caribbean Classic Betting Championship qualifier. This new brick-and-mortar event will be held on December 9 (suddenly just a couple of weeks away).
Our big Sunday cash game will again be guaranteed at $12,000 and carry a pool-style, “The more that play, the more we pay” provision that could grow the pot to as much as $20,000 last Sunday’s game paid out $16,394). It’s a live-format compeition this week with an entry fee of $195. Entries are capped at $118.
There’s also a $2,00 guaranteed Exacta tourney (you get to pick a three-horse box in every race), and the purse could reach $5,000 if the maximum number of entries (79) sign up. Each entry costs $72.
Or you could shoot for one of our other entry-only Sunday qualifiers. We have one for Surfside ($92 entry fee) and one for the Horse Player World Series ($87).
Last but not least, the 10th and 11th guaranteed NHC seats of the long weekend will be available on Sunday…
…in a live-format NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. It’s $165 to play and two seats are guaranteed to be awarded.
As much fun and as much action as there’ll be this weekend, Thanksgiving is, of course, a time for family and a time to give thanks. We here at HorseTourneys are thankful for you—our players. We love what we do, and we only get to do it because of you. So again…
Thanks.