This weekend represents your last chance to spot your Derby horse in prep action—and your first chance to play a couple of exciting new events. It’s all part of a 16-featured-tourneys weekend that gets rolling on Friday.
The headliner on Friday is our up-to-$12,500 Pick & Pray with $5,000 Guaranteed. It has an entry fee of $190 and entries are limited to 75. Robert Shoemaker II won this game last Friday and collected $4,876.
HorsePlayers on Friday offers one of its most consistently popular competitions.
It’s a two-seats-guaranteed NHC Pick & Pray with an entry fee of just $75. In case you missed the news earlier this week, the NHC will be headed back to Bally’s Las Vegas in 2020. Win this (or come in second) and that’s where you’ll be headed.
Keeneland will once again provide the backbone of our weekend contest-race schedules. The races for the Friday features are the 5th through 9th at the beautiful Lexington, Ky., oval; the 7th through 9th at Aqueduct; and the 8th and 9th from Gulfstream—10 races in all.
Saturday has four important tourneys on the docket, but one at HorsePlayers warrants special attention. It’s the first of its kind, and it’s not for everyone…but it just may be for you.
Introducing the first-ever Ultra Low Ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier. The entry fee is not cheap…$2,750. But if we attract four entrants, one of them will receive a full, $10,000 BCBC entry. If you want to win your way into the BCBC, but want to face as few competitors as possible in doing so, this is your spot. This tourney, like most of the Saturday/Sunday events, will be run in live-format mode.
Want to qualify for the BCBC but don’t have $2,750 lying around under the sofa cushions? Then may we suggest Saturday’s “regular” BCBC qualifier. Same rules and races as the Ultra Low Ratio qualifier, but a more modest entry fee of $179.
Back here at HorseTourneys, there’s an up-to-$30,000, live-format tourney on Saturday with $17,500 guaranteed. The entry fee is $260 with a cap on entries of 140.
There’s also a “regular,” live-format NHC qualifier with two seats guaranteed. The entry fee here is $165.
Saturday contest races are the 5th through 10th at Keeneland (great Saturday card there!); the 5th and 7th at The Big A (as in Aqueduct); and the 7th, 9th, 10th and 11th at Gulfstream. That’s a dozen races on which to test your handicapping mettle.
There are 10 daily specials on the (Palm) Sunday blackboard, including a brand new one.
The NTRA is kicking off its NHC Super Qualifiers earlier this year. The first one is taking place on April 27th at Santa Anita, and you can win a $1,500 entry to it on Sunday. Our qualifier costs $119 to play, and if you win, you’ll be competing for 10 NHC spots (based on 150 entries) at Santa Anita, where you will be required to make 10 live-money, $100 win-place bets from among the full cards at Santa Anita and Golden Gate.
Cash gamers should enjoy our up-to-$20,000 tourney, which carries an entry fee of $195. A minimum purse guarantee of $10,000 is in place for this live-format event.
There are two other Sunday cash events on the schedule: our up-to-$5,000 Exacta box tourney, and the Pick 6 Jackpot tourney.. This Exacta game (always run in live-format) offers a guaranteed pot of $1,000 and requires participants to make a three-horse exacta box play in each contest race. Sometimes the winner wins by hitting a monster. Other times, slow and steady wins the race. The winner is based on total return from a $1.00 base play. This tourney carries an entry fee of $125 and entries are capped at 45.
Meanwhile the Pick 6 Jackpot contest offers 70% of the net pool to the winners and 30% to those who get all six contest races correct. If no one does that, then the 30% goes into the carryover pool for the next week’s event. This tourney carries an entry fee of just $55, and the carryover amount currently stands at $1,496.
You also have the opportunity on Sunday to “Master-fully” win a seat to some top on-site tournaments. One of those opportunities is for The BIG One at Laurel Park. The entry fee of $350 buys you a chance to win an all-inclusive package to the high-expectation contest in September that will award 10 NHC seats, five BCBC spots, five Pegasus entries, five HPWS entries, plus a guaranteed cash prize pool of at least $75,000. Once again in 2019, there will be no more than 57 entries allowed at The BIG One, so those 25 prizes will be shared among no more than 25 people. And since Sunday’s qualifier is guaranteed, one package will be awarded regardless of participation
Thirty-three entries have already been secured for the August 3-4 Spa & Surf Showdown, but (unlike The BIG One) there’s no limit on how many can participate in this $100,000 Guaranteed, two-day, online tournament that will only focus on races from Saratoga and Del Mar. The more that play, the more we’ll pay—once we cross the 55-entry mark. Sunday’s live-format qualifier costs $113 to play and one of every 20 will win a $2,000 entry.
There’s no “Surf” involved in our qualifier to the Saratoga Challenge, but that’s a really good one too. It will held this year on Friday and Saturday, August 9-10 at the historic Saratoga Springs racetrack. Win this one-per-25 qualifier ($166 entry fee) and you’ll be on the receiving end of a $3,500 package, including $3,000 in entry fees that will cover you for both of the single-day tournaments on the 9th and 10th.
The qualifiers to the April 28 Steve Sexton Mile Day Challenge at Lone Star Park have been popular items, and you have another chance to win a $1,000 entry this Sunday. Entries are $79 each.
Also up for your Sunday grabs is a $2,500 package to the Monmouth Pick Your Prize tournament. On Sunday, you can win your way into this June 1 event for $117. One in 25 will earn a $2,000 entry plus an additional $500 for travel.
Two more featured tourneys—one live, one Pick & Pray—will be contested at HorsePlayers on Sunday.
One is a “regular” NHC Pick & Pray with two spots guaranteed, and a $165 entry fee.
The other is a low-ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge contest with one in 23 earning a $10,000 entry. This one is a $500, live-format tourney, and one grand prize (a $10,000 entry) is guaranteed to be awarded even if we don’t hit 23 sign ups.
Before we sign off, we want to call your attention to a couple of direct qualifier beginning next week, and a big cash game on Preakness Day.
Starting next Sunday, you can win a seat to the Santa Anita Preakness Challenge and the Belmont Stakes Challenge. You can play feeders for these April 20 tourneys starting…right now!
And on Preakness Day, Saturday, May 18, we’ll be hosting a $75,000 Guaranteed tourney with no limit as to how high the pot can grow. Mark your calendars (not that you didn’t already for Preakness Day).
We also want to send out good luck (and safe travels) wishes to the 34 individuals who will be venturing to Keeneland as HorseTourneys qualifiers for Sunday’s Grade One Gamble. They are led by Tommy “The Hammer” Massis, who won three “GOG” entries at HorseTourneys this year.
Enjoy the racing, enjoy the golf, and may good things come your way this weekend.