Live-format tourneys are the order of the day this coming weekend that will see no fewer than 18 featured tourneys contested. With Saratoga and Del Mar in full swing, it should be another exciting—not to mention, lucrative—three days.
The fun begins on Friday.
As usual, the TGIF headliner is our Friday up-to-$12,500 Pick & Pray with $5,000 Guaranteed. If just three people enter, the purse will still be…$5,000. At HorseTourneys, when we miscalculate player interest, it’s on us. The players never wind up holding the bag.
We’ve also added to the Friday schedule a live-format, entry-only qualifier to the Orleans Fall Classic in October. One in just 10 entries (at $59 each) will win a $500 to the October 11-13 mythical money competition.
Contest races for the Friday features are the 5th, 7th and 8th from Ellis; the 6th through 8th from Saratoga; the 6th and 7th from Gulfstream; and the late double, races 9 and 10, from Woodbine—10 races in all.
Using the same races, HorsePlayers joins the Friday featured schedule with a Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio Pick & Pray.
It’s a high-end qualifier with a $500 entry fee, but you won’t find a better ratio (other than at The BIG One) for winning a BCBC seat…just one in 23 in Friday’s tournament.
Saturday is a great day to make a run at an NHC seat. Two of the day’s five featured tourneys have the Vegas extravaganza as the end-game.
One of those is an NHC Low Ratio, $500-buy in tourney here at HorseTourneys. The entry fee essentially buys you a 1-in-21 shot at getting yourself “qualified.”
Speaking of Las Vegas, we also offer another Orleans Fall Classic qualfier, this one offering a $1,000 package ($500 entry fee plus $500 for travel).
Cash gamers (like last weekend’s double winner, Stephen Curtin) will have their sights set on Saturday’s up-to-$30,000 tourney with $17,500 Guaranteed. And should the pot go above the $17,500 minimum, you can track the purse amount in real time right on the home page. Never a need to guess.
Contest races Saturday are the 7th and 11th from Woodbine; the 7th through 11th at Saratoga; the 1st, 2nd and 4th from Del Mar; and the 9th and 10th from Laurel. All of the above Saturday games will be run in live format.
And so will the pair of featured events at HorsePlayers on Saturday.
If the $500 NHC Low Ratio qualifier at HorseTourneys is a little steep for you, may we suggest the $75 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers? Two seats are guaranteed.
The BCBC is also back in the HorsePlayers mix this day with a “regular” qualifier with a $179 entry fee and one $10,000 entry guaranteed. The same races will be used here at HorsePlayers as for the three featured events at HorseTourneys.
Ten live-format tourneys fill the slate on Sunday.
Just a dozen online seats remain for the Sept. 22-23 The BIG One at Laurel where 10 NHC seats, 10 BCBC entries and 10 Horse Player World Series entries (or $1,500 cash awards) will be up for grabs. Two all-inclusive packages are guaranteed in this Sunday qualifier.
Cash gamers can play win-place, three-horse exacta boxes or both.
Our up-to-$20,000 tourney with $10,000 guaranteed carries an entry fee of $195 with a maximum of 118 allowed in.
Our Sunday Exacta tourneys (always live-format) offer $2,000 Guaranteed with a possible pot of up to $5,000 depending on participation. It’s $125 to enter, and players pick a three-horse exacta box in each tourney race. The winner is whoever achieves the highest total overall return based on a $1 exacta box play. (No price caps in play here.)
There are plenty more qualifiers to discuss. Sometimes we trumpet “first chance” tourneys. Sometimes we bang the drum for “last chance” contests. Now we have one that fits both categories simultaneously.
It’s a first chance/last chance (basically one-time-only) qualifier for the August 18 Del Mar Pacific Classic Challenge. This is an entry-only tourney with one in 10 earning a $500 entry for six days down the road.
Woodbine is back on the schedule this week with a $184 qualifier to the Woodbine Mile Horseplayers Tournament on September 15. Winners (one per each 20 entries) receive an entry worth $3,500 (Canadian) and a travel credit of $500 (American). This is sure to be especially popular with our Toronto-area players who can pocket that travel bonus!
Not surprisingly, Keeneland is on the Sunday schedule qualifier to the October 14 Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge. One in 25 entries will earn a $3,500 package to the Lexington, Ky., competition. If you fly in there and have bad luck with the horses, at least it’s a short ride (walk?) back to the airport.
Sunday is also our next-to-last-chance qualifier to the August 25 Monmouth Super Qualifier, which offers seven NHC seats and two BCBC entries. An $80 buy-in gets you a 1 in 15 chance at a $1,000 package ($500 entry plus $500 travel).
And it’s our very-last-chance to win a $300 entry to the August 18 Laurel Champions Tourney. One in 10 will win in this $35 buy-in contest.
Once again, HorsePlayers offers you both an NHC and a BCBC qualifier for your…horseplaying pleasure.
The NHC event is a regular qualifier with two seats guaranteed. The BCBC is a Low Ratio game, with a $500 entry fee, 1 per 23 winning ratio and one $10,000 entry guaranteed. Contest races for all Sunday featured tourneys are still TBD as of press time.
There figure to be a lot of laptops with HorseTourneys on their screens this Friday and Saturday up at Saratoga. That’s because this is the weekend of the two single-day contests that make up the Saratoga Challenge. We want to send out special good-luck wishes to the 42 HorseTourneys qualifiers who will be playing at the Spa. We hope a couple of you can emulate HorseTourneys qualifier Dennis Montoro, who captured the recent Del Mar Handicapping Challenge.
Good luck to all of you whether you’ll be in Saratoga or just on your living room couch. With an internet connection, you’ll all be on equal footing at HorseTourneys.