For many, Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday of the year. Undoubtedly, millions of Americans give Turkey Day the nod over Christmas because on Thanksgiving, unlike December 25th, HorseTourneys is open. We carry on that hallowed tradition Thursday, which serves as the kickoff to a four-day harvest of tourneys.
You can pick up some shopping money on Thanksgiving with our $15,000 Guaranteed, No Limit Pick & Pray. It’s $195 to play, and there is no limit as to how high the purse can grow (similar to many of our waistlines on this day).
We also offer a special Thursday qualifier to the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship. It, like all of our Thursday features, is a Pick & Pray, so that you can enter your picks, then focus on football or—even better—family. One per 20 in this $384 tourney will trot down to Gulfstream on January 25 with a paid-up $6,000 entry…plus $500 for travel.
Also being served on Thanksgiving is a Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier. This Pick & Pray costs $89 to enter (cheaper than many restaurant prix-fixe menus on this day) and one of every 20 participants will garner a $1,500 HPWS entry at The Orleans.
We complete the Thursday spread with a qualifier to the Feb. 29-March 1 Flo-Cal Faceoff. Eight-six dollars here buys you a one-in-20 chance at a $1,500 entry for the $100,000 Guaranteed Fountain of Youth weekend contest right here at HorseTourneys.
Del Mar has already canceled its Thursday card as most of you know by now. That essentially leaves us with Aqueduct, Golden Gate and Laurel as eligible contest tracks for us to use. Our favorite tracks on Thanksgiving—or any other day—are ones that are open, and with weather forecasts calling for high winds in the East, we’re going to lean heavily on Golden Gate. Thus, the 10 contest races for our four featured tourneys on Thursday will be the 6th through 8th at Aqueduct and the 2nd through 8th at Golden Gate.
On Friday, we don’t open at 5:00 am like some of the retailers do…but we do have three doorbusters (two here and one at HorsePlayers) that we hope you find enticing. And if that doesn’t grab you, then maybe the fact that it’s opening day at Gulfstream will!
Black Friday is Green Friday at HorseTourneys with our up-to-$15,000 Pick & Pray. It carries an entry fee of $190 and has a guaranteed purse of at least $7,500.
There’s also Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier. This Pick & Pray has an everyday low price of $89, and one of every 20 participants will walk out of the store with a $1,500 HPWS entry at the home of the Crawfish Bar.
The Friday Pick & Pray feature at HorsePlayers is sure to attract large crowds and keep countless people from the malls during the afternoon.
It’s a $75 NHC Pick & Pray with two spots guaranteed. Come for the NHC seats…stay for the copious NHC Tour Points.
There are some nice racing cards across the county on Saturday, and we’ll try to supercharge things somewhat with our four featured competitions—including two that will be run under the special All-Optional Live format.
Our first of the “All Optional Lives” is our richest tourney of the weekend, Saturday’s up-to-$30,000 game with $15,000 Guaranteed. The entry fee is $260, and players must make 10 plays from among 25 eligible contest races. Hate a race? Can’t make heads or tails of it? Think a heavy chalk will roll? Skip it!
Saturday’s other All Optional Live tourney is our full-package Horse Player World Series qualifier. Winners get a $1,500 entry plus a four-night hotel stay and a $500 travel credit. The entry fee is $118, and the winning ratio will be 1-per-25.
We’re back to a more traditional, 12-race, live-format tourney with our Monmouth Last Chance qualifier. One of every 10 entries in this $71 tourney will receive two entries (worth a total of $600) for Monmouth on December 28.
If you’ve had trouble breaking through in terms of qualifying for the NHC this year…or if you’ve gotten off to a late start, then Saturday’s featured tourney at HorsePlayers may be just right for you.
It’s a $165, live-format qualifier that is restricted to those who have yet to win a seat to the 2020 event. This “Maiden Special” guaranteed one spot, and, since the field is restricted, no NHC Tour Points will be available in this one. So go for the gusto!
Four more All-Optional Live games are on the schedule this Sunday (already the first day of December!).
Again, the day’s featured cash tourney will occupy one of our All-Optional Live spots—our $10,000 Guaranteed cash game. Entries for this $195 buy-in event are capped at 118, and the pot could reach $20,000 depending on how many sign up.
And again, the day’s Horse Player World Series qualifier will serve as an All Optional Live representative. It’s $89 to play this entry-only affair and one in 20 will prosper.
And this time the Pegasus World Cup Betting Challenge qualifier gets the All-Optional Live treatment as well. One of every 20 entries in this $384 “Pick 10 from 25” game will earn a $6,000 entry plus $500 for travel.
An All-Optional Live seat can also be won on Sunday to the two-day, February 29-March 1, Flo-Cal Faceoff. The Faceoff is an online tourney offering a Guaranteed purse of $100,000, though it’s a “No Limit” tourney, so the final pot could be well higher than 100K. It’s modeled after last summer’s popular Spa & Surf Showdown. On Sunday, you can grab a $1,500 entry to the Faceoff, which will feature full-card racing from Gulfstream and Santa Anita during Fountain of Youth weekend. Sunday’s “AOL” qualifier will carry an $86 entry fee. The winning ratio is 1 in 20.
A Last Chance qualifier comes Sunday in the form of our play-in to the Lone Star Park NHC tournament on December 7. One of every 10 entries, at $59 each, will win a $500 spot in the Dallas Metroplex event. The format is a traditional 12-race live tourney.
Using that same format will be the NTRA/Fair Grounds Super Qualifier offering a $1,500 entry plus $500 for travel to the Big Easy on December 21 for an entry fee of $118. One in 20 will win.
Completing the Sunday featured schedule at HorseTourneys are two more cash games: our up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed. Players in this one will select a mythical three-horse-exacta box play in each of the 12 contest races. The format here, as always, is live.
The other is our $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourney. It’s a six-race tourney, of course, and 70% of the net pool gets paid out to players via the normal, $2 win/place scoring method, while the other 30% goes to the Jackpot pool. Pick the winners of all six races and you win (or share, if multiple players do so) the Jackpot, which is now up to $3,525. This game is always run in live format.
There are two traditional, 12-race, live-format qualifiers at HorsePlayers on Sunday—one to the NHC and one to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
The NHC game s a “regular,” $165 qualifier with two spots guaranteed.
The BCBC qualifier is a Low-Ratio tilt with an entry fee of $500 and one $10,000 seat guaranteed. The winning ratio here is 1-per-21.
From all of us here at HorseTourneys, have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and may your travels be safe ones if you are hitting the road this weekend.