Belmont Stakes Day this Saturday offers the best betting card this side of the Breeders’ Cup, and you can turn your smart handicapping opinions into big money via our big $75,000 Guaranteed tourney.
You can enter this 15-race, live-format event on Saturday for $495. Or you can win your way into it for as little as $27 through low-cost feeders between now and the big day. The pot will be at least $75,000…and it could conceivably be well north of that figure depending on participation. One thing is for certain: you will have no shortage of quality horses available to use as bankroll boosters throughout the day.
Don’t go to sleep on Friday, though, because there are two very popular tourneys—one at HorseTourneys and one at HorsePlayers—that are sure to attract a big crowd to each.
The Belmont eve feature is our up-to-$12,500 Pick & Pray with $5,000
Guaranteed. It has an entry fee of $190 and entries are capped at 75. It’s always a great feeling to know you’re going to be a winner for the weekend before the big day even arrives!
One of the most highly-attended competitions at HorsePlayers is also on tap for Friday.
It’s a $75 NHC qualifier with two seats guaranteed to be awarded. This Pick & Pray has a winning ratio of 1 per 143, and if we reach 429 entries, then we will, of course, add a third NHC spot to the prize pool.
We bragged about the quality of the Saturday Belmont card. Well, Friday’s isn’t too shabby either, and we made it the centerpiece of the day’s 10 contest races. They are: races 6 through 11 at Belmont; the 1st and 5th from Santa Anita; and the 8th and 9th from Laurel.
Saturday has an undisputed star of the show—the $75,000 Guaranteed tourney. But that’s just one of several featured events on Belmont Stakes Day.
Leading the HorseTourneys Saturday “undercard” is a “regular,” two-spots guaranteed NHC Pick & Pray. The winning ratio here is the standard 1 per 65, and the entry fee is $165.
You can also play in a qualifier to the June 22 Santa Anita Spring Challenge. Winners (one per each 20 entries) of this live-format game will earn a $3,000 entry to the Arcadia, Calif., contest. And those who can’t make it California on June 22 can play their entry on Xpressbet.com.
The other Saturday qualifier is to the Saratoga Challenge (August 9-10). The Spa event is run as two single-day tourneys, and our Saturday winner or winners will receive $3,000 in entry fees (good for both days) plus $500 for travel. Entries to this live-format tourney are $166 each, and the winning ratio is 1 per 25.
If you’ve been wondering where the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge figures in to all of the Belmont Stakes hoopla, it’s right here, right now (Saturday) at HorsePlayers.
It’s a “regular” Pick & Pray with an entry fee of $179 and a winning ratio of one per 65, though one $10,000 BCBC entry will be up for grabs even if fewer than 65 take part.
Because it’s such a big day, the Saturday featured tourney players in the $75,000 game and all of the above events will be navigating a special course of 15 contest races: the 7th through 13th at Belmont (six stakes including five Grade Is; the 8th through 10th from Laurel; the 6th, 8th and 9th at Woodbine (all stakes); and the 8th and 9th from Santa Anita.
Believe it or not, Sunday is our busiest day of the weekend with eight featured, multi-track contests here at HorseTourneys.
There is news regarding our Sunday, live-format qualifier to the Spa & Surf Showdown ($113 buy-in). The $100,000 Guaranteed online event on August 3-4 is already up to 55 qualifiers…which means that starting with Sunday’s qualifier, the purse will start increasing with each additional qualifier. You can keep track of the Showdown purse status here at the website each week. Participants in August will decide the six-figure purse by playing only races from Saratoga and Del Mar.
We also have a new addition to the qualifier roster this weekend in Sunday’s “first chance” qualifier to the July 14 Stars of Texas Betting Challenge at Lone Star Park. Entries in this live-format game cost just $79, and one in 15 will earn a $1,000 to the Texas tourney.
Back on the Sunday menu this week is a high-end qualifier to the high-end Del Mar Handicapping Challenge (July 27-28). Winners (one per 25) in this $400 buy-in Pick & Pray will receive a robust $8,500 package, which includes a $500 credit to your HorseTourneys account for travel.
As is the case every Sunday, you have an opportunity to qualify for The BIG One at Laurel Park on September 21-22. Winners receive an all-inclusive package to a high-expectation competition that awards 10 NHC seats, five BCBC spots, five Pegasus entries, five HPWS entries, plus a guaranteed cash prize pool of at least $75,000…spread out amongst no more than 57 entries. At least one package will be awarded regardless of participation in this Sunday qualifier. Packages to The BIG One include your contest entry plus hotel, transfers from hotel to the track and back, a welcome dinner, plus buffet/open bar at Laurel and a $500 account credit for you to put toward your travel if you wish.
The other four Sunday featured tourneys are cash games, including a pair of $10,000 Guaranteed events. One is our every-other-weekend “Big Bucks” tourney with an entry fee of $1,150 and a maximum of 20 entrants permitted. Payouts go only to the top three finishers on a 70%/20%/10% basis.
The other $10,000 Guaranteed game on Sunday is our up-to-$20,000 tourney (live-format this week) with an entry fee of $195. Here, up to 118 entries will be accepted.
A smaller entry-fee Sunday cash game is our up-to-$5,000 Exacta box contest (always run in live format). Offering a guaranteed purse of $1,000, this game costs $125 and requires players to play a three-horse exacta box in each of the 12 contest races. Entries are capped at 45, and payoff caps are never in effect in these Exacta tourneys.
If you prefer small stakes, but still appreciate the opportunity for a nice score, there’s our Jackpot Pick 6 tourney. The entry fee is just $8, with 70 percent of the net pool going to the top finishers, and 30% being directed to the carryover pool should no one get all six contest races right. If someone does, though, that $8 would take down the jackpot pool (currently more than $1,755). If more than one player does so, then the jackpot pool is shared.
There are two featured tourneys at HorsePlayers on Sunday, including one of extra special interest.
The “regular” NHC qualifier with two spots guaranteed isn’t really “regular” because it will be run in the special All-Optional Live format that made its reappearance here a couple of weeks ago and was very popular. With this format, you make a maximum of 10 mythical $2.00 win/place selections (no more than one per race) from a bank of 25 eligible races. So if you don’t like a race, you can skip it and move on. It affords the player more control, obviously, over which races decide his or her contest fate.
The other Sunday qualifier is a Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio Pick & Pray. (Will John Doyle win yet another one of these??). The entry fee is $500, and one per 23 will win a $10,000 entry to the most prestigious live-bankroll tournament of the year. One $10,000 entry to the Breeders’ Cup weekend tournament is guaranteed to be awarded.
It’s only fitting on Belmont Stakes weekend that we wish good luck to Ernest “Say” Hey Jr., Peter Osella, Eric Pineiro, Mike McEntire and Alex Brown. They are the five handicappers who will be representing HorseTourneys as qualifiers to the Friday-Saturday Belmont Stakes Handicapping Challenge.
We wish you luck as well—in our $75,000 game, and in any and all of our tourneys in which you choose to take part. Enjoy the Belmont!