Whether you’re in Vegas or Visalia…Treasure Island or Long Island…we’re ready for you at HorseTourneys this weekend with a slew (11 to be exact) of featured tourneys, including three key qualifiers making their 2018 debuts on Sunday.
The featured competitions get under way on Friday.
Friday regulars know by now that TGIF day is anchored by our up-to-$10,000 Pick & Pray with $6,000 Guaranteed. Like the vast majority of this weekend’s tourneys, this one is a Pick & Pray, leaving you plenty of time to work, enter your NHC plays, etc. Entry fee for this up-to-$10,000 event is $190 with a limit of 60 entries.
We also offer a Friday Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier—one of three HPWS tourneys (one each day) available during the weekend. It costs $87 to play and one entry per 20 gets a $1,500 entry at The Orleans next month.
Featured tourney contest races for Friday are the 7th through 12th from Gulfstream; the 1st and 4th from Santa Anita; and the 7th and 9th from Tampa Bay Downs —10 in all.
Two more featured tourneys come at you on Saturday. They are similar to Friday’s, but we’ve raised the stakes a bit.
The weekend’s big-money event is an up-to-$30,000 Pick & Pray. The guarantee for this one is a little lower than usual — $10,000 due to the potential distraction for some that the NHC poses. But if we’re wrong about that distraction, then the pot swell just as high as ever — $30,000. It’s $260 to play and entries are limited to 133.
Our second of three Horse Player World Series contests takes place on Saturday, and this one is a Full Package qualifier with a value-conscious entry fee of $117. Winners (one per 25 entries) earn a $1,500 tournament entry, $500 travel stipend and a four-night hotel stay at The Orleans. Don’t look now, but this competition (one of the year’s “majors”) is suddenly just four weeks away!
Contest races for Saturday are the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 7th from Santa Anita; the 7th through 12th from Gulfstream; and the 7th and 9th at Tampa Bay Downs—12 in total.
On to Sunday.
The headliner is our third qualifier for the 2018 The BIG One, to be held this September at Laurel. Two all-inclusive packages are guaranteed to be awarded regardless of many or few take part. With the NHC going on, this could be a great chance to catch the competition napping.
There are also three “first chance” qualifiers for popular tournaments taking place later this year. One is for the April 15 Keeneland Grade One Gamble. Jim Goodman always runs a great competition there in the land of the bluegrass and, at this one, six Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge and 10 NHC seats will be up for grabs. Winners of our qualifier (one per each 25 entries) receive their $3,000 entry plus $500 for travel.
Another great brick-and-mortar event is the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge, hosted by Brian Skirka & Co. This year’s renewal takes place on June 2 and will offer an array of BCBC, NHC and straight cash prizes. The higher you finish, in the contest, the higher your position in the “draft” of prizes at the end. Again, one per 25 entries in our Sunday qualifier will garner a $2,000 entry plus $500 to get to the Jersey Shore.
Occupying a lower profile—but also a great, live event and also open for qualifying on Sunday—is the Laurel Park Champions contest on March 3. The entry fee at Laurel for this is just $300 and so our qualifier carries an entry fee of just $35. One of the things I think makes this contest so much fun is that it’s a little like the Monmouth Pick Your Prize game. There are four available tournament seats to go along with the prize money—two to the NHC, one to the BCBC and one to The BIG One. The winner gets his choice of seat, the runner up gets second choice and so on.
At this time of year, you know it’s more than likely we are offering a Horse Player World Series qualifier, and Sunday is no exception. This one, our third of three this weekend, is an entry-only contest with an entry fee of $87.
We also have a couple of good old fashioned cash games on Sunday.
We’ll be offering an up-to-$20,000 Pick & Pray with $8,000 guaranteed regardless of participation levels. This one costs $195 per entry.
There is also an up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney (our lone live-format featured game of the weekend) that has an entry fee of $72 and guarantees a purse of at least $2,000.
Last but not least we, of course, want to wish good luck to the hundreds of HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers qualifiers out in Las Vegas for the NHC. If you’re not there, but want to stay clued in on what’s going on, follow our twitter feed (@horsetourneys). Bob Nastanovich will be there Friday, Saturday and Sunday providing scoring updates, interviews and color on Twitter. He’ll also be filing end-of-day recaps on our blog page.
If you’re at home, we’ve got your action this weekend. And if you’re at the NHC, we’ve got action for you too. Wherever you are, we wish you a pleasant and lucky weekend.