We know a lot of you will be in front of your computers this weekend. Though we also know that a lot of loyal HorseTourneys customers will be happily out at Keeneland for Sunday’s Grade I Gamble. To be precise, 48 players will be representing us in Lexington at the “Gamble,” having qualified for the event right here. They include the winners of the 2018 NHC, Chris Littlemore, and the 2018 Horseplayer World Series, Bob Montgomery. We wish all 48 the best of luck. For the rest of you—and for them as well—we have put together a very nice schedule that should ensure an exciting weekend wherever you may be spending it.
It all begins with our Friday, up-to-$10,000 Pick & Pray, which has sold out each of the last two weeks.
It’s worth noting that this tourney will be our only featured event of the weekend that operates as a Pick & Pray. So if you enjoy the “set it and forget it” ease that a Pick & Pray affords, this contest is definitely for you. Just don’t wait until the last minute to enter.
That “last minute”, by the way, is about 3:51 p.m. ET on Friday. Contest races are the 6th, 8th, 9th and 10th from Keeneland; the 7th through 9th from Aqueduct; and the 6th and 8th from Santa Anita—10 races in all.
Our richest tourney of the weekend takes place on Saturday.
It’s an up-to-$30,000 cash game (again, live-format as are all Saturday and Sunday featured tourneys this week) and guaranteed at $20,000 no matter how many enter. The entry fee is $260 and entries are limited to 133.
At HorsePlayers, there is a pair of featured events on Saturday.
One is a two-seat guaranteed NHC qualifier for $165, and the other is a one-seat-guaranteed Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge contest for $179. Contest races for these, plus the up-to-$30,000 game at HorseTourneys, are the 6th through 11th at Keeneland (four stakes in the mix there, including a very competitive Grade I Jenny Wiley), the 7th through 9th at the Big A; and races 8 through 10 at Santa Anita.
Just as you can try to qualify for both the NHC and BCBC on Saturday at HorsePlayers, you can do the same on Sunday.
Here the stakes are higher. It’s $500 to enter either, but that higher entry fee buys you significantly lower winning ratios; 1 in 21 for the NHC Super Qualifier and 1 per 23 for the BCBC Low Ratio tourney. (“Super Qualifier”…”Low Ratio”…different names, same concept!)
At HorseTourneys on Sunday, you can choose among two featured cash games and three featured qualifiers.
The Sunday staple is our popular up-to-$20,000 tourney (live format this week) for $195 with $12,000 Guaranteed. Entries are limited to three per account and 118 overall. As of this writing, entries had yet to be drawn for Sunday, but expect Keeneland, Aqueduct and Santa Anita to figure prominently in the contest race menu.
If you prefer casting a wider net than just a single horse, there’s
our Sunday always-live-format Exacta tourney for $72. It’s an up-to-$5,000 affair with $2,000 guaranteed. Here, you choose a three-horse exacta box for each race, and if you connect, your score is credited with the payoff of a $1 exacta. What a lot of people also like is that there are no payoff caps in our exacta tourneys. Do you like a 30-1 shot and a 50-1 shot in the same race? Go for it!
On the qualifying front, you can play a pair of 1 in 25 winning-ratio tourneys that each lead to important East Coast events. One is a $117 qualifier for the June 2 Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge. The other is a $164 game with the grand prize(s) being $3,500 packages to both days of the August 10-11 Saratoga Challenge (contested for the first time this year on a Friday and Saturday).
Sunday also serves as your last-chance to qualify for the new Santa Anita April Challenge, which will be held on Saturday, April 21. Entry for this one is $59 and one in just 10 will earn a $500 entry to next Saturday’s competition at The Great Race Place.
Again, we wish our HorseTourneys “Four Dozen” good luck at Keeneland on Sunday. And we wish everyone an enjoyable (and profitable) weekend.