We’ll be busier than the Grucci family this Fourth of July weekend with 26 featured tourneys and an extra heavy barrage of nine guaranteed NHC seats that’s sure to elicit oohs and ahhs from any gathering of onlookers. The fireworks begin on Friday.
Friday’s most explosive display is our $10,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. Entries cost $190 each.
We’ve already exceeded our purse guarantee of $150,000 for the August 15-16 Spa & Surf Showdown. The pot is already certain to be at least $157,500, and that figure will grow with each successive qualifier—and we have one on each day of the weekend. Winners of our Friday qualifier earn a $2,000 entry to the all-cash competition. (The same applies on Saturday and Sunday.) The buy-in each day for these qualifiers is $113. Winners (1-per-20) will play two full days of racing from Saratoga and Del Mar. The format on Friday will be Pick & Pray.
We also have a qualifier on each day of the weekend for the Keeneland Summer Online Challenge (July 11). You can win a $3,000 entry to it here on Friday for an entry fee of $175 in a 1-per-20 Pick & Pray qualifier. Note that you must have, or establish before July 11, an Xpressbet account in order to win our qualifier and then play in the Online Challenge. In the Keeneland Challenge the top six finishers will earn both an NHC and a BCBC seat. Finishers 7-10 pick up NHC spots (based on 200 entries). There will also be cash up for grabs in the Keeneland contest (which, this year, serves to replace the Keeneland Grade One Gamble).
Another Friday feature is a $116 Pick & Pray to the Xpressbet NHC Super Qualifier, which will take place…at Xpressbet…on July 18. Winners (1-per-15) receive a paid-up $1,500 entry.
There is one qualifier on Friday for the NHC and one for the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge—both at HorsePlayers.
Friday’s $75 NHC Pick & Pray at HorsePlayers offers two guaranteed seats to the big dance next February, and NHC Tour points will also be available to those finishing in the top 10%. It’s a Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1 in 143.
The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier is a Low Ratio tourney that is also a Pick & Pray. One $10,000 entry is guaranteed to be in heading out the door regardless of participation in this $500 event. The winning ratio is 1-per-23.
Contest races this Friday at both HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers are the 9th through 11th from Laurel; the 8th through 10th at Belmont; the 5th and 6th from Los Alamitos; and the 3rd and 5th at Monmouth where it will be opening day at the Jersey Shore oval. That’s 10 races in all.
We light up the sky on the 4th with nine featured games—five here and four at HorsePlayers.
All of the Saturday action will take place in the Pick & Pray format so that you can put in your picks and spend the holiday with family. How often you sneak away to check in on the results is up to you!
The richest tourney of the weekend is Saturday’s $25,000 Guaranteed No Limit cash tourney. This Pick & Pray requires an entry fee of $260 to enter.
Saturday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks competition has an $1,150 buy-in and signups are limited to 20, though occasionally the field can be a touch higher due to last-minute feeders. The purse could get up as high as $20,000 (or even a little bit more). Payouts go to the top three finishers on a 70%/20%/10% split.
We have guaranteed qualifiers to The BIG One on both Saturday and Sunday. The first prize includes an upfront cash payment of $500 to go along with a fully paid-up entry to the finals on September 19-20. The buy-in here is $395, the format is Pick & Pray (Sunday’s will be a live-format game) and no more than 27 entries will be allowed entry. In The BIG One, the top 10 finishers get their choice of a seat to the NHC, BCBC or Pegasus World Cup plus they share in a cash pool that is already up to $99,000 (and counting). Finishers 11-15 get a choice of either $1,500 or a Horse Players World Series entry. The final field in September will be made up of no more than 57 entries. So if you get to The BIG One, you have a pretty fair chance of winning a nice prize. That’s why we refer to it as “the high-expectation tourney.”
There’s also a Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier on Saturday, and the entry fee once again is $113. Winners in this 1-per-20 play-in earn a $2,000 entry to the now-$157,000 Guaranteed online cash event (August 15-16) here at HorseTourneys.
Also on tap is the second of three weekend qualifiers to the Keeneland Summer Online Challenge. An entry fee of $175 buys you a shot at a $3,000 entry for July 11 (a week from Saturday).
There are four featured tourneys (twice as many as usual) over at HorsePlayers on Saturday.
There’s an interesting—and attractive—new wrinkle in the $165 NHC qualifier that guarantees two seats. It has a winning ratio of just 1-in-52, rather than the customary 1-in-65.
If that’s still too high a winning ratio for you, then you can step up your entry fee to $500 and partake in an NHC Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of just 1-in-17. Note that just one seat is guaranteed in this one and—as per NHC Tour rules—this event will not offer Tour points unless there are enough entries to award a second seat.
There are also two different price points in play for the day’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier. Saturday’s “regular” qualifier” costs $179 to enter, and one grand prize is certain. The winning ratio is 1-per-65.
Or you could play the Super Low Ratio Pick & Pray, which also guarantees at least one winner…but carries an entry fee of $1,000 and a winning ratio of a low 1-per-11
There will be 12 races (six of them graded stakes!) in our Saturday, multi-track featured tourneys: Races 7 through 11 at Belmont where it’s Met Mile Day; the 9th and 10th at Laurel; the 8th and 9th from Woodbine; and the 7th through 9th at Los Alamitos.
We’re keeping plenty of powder dry for Sunday when 11 featured tourneys are on the schedule—nine of them right here.
Weekend opportunity #3 for the Keeneland Summer Online Challenge takes place this day. Again, you can win a $3,000 entry for an entry fee of $175 in a 1-per-20 Pick & Pray.
There’s also a third weekend chance at the Spa & Surf Showdown. Once more, it will be a $113 Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1-per-20.
Qualifier #2 of the weekend for the Xpressbet NHC Super Qualifier is set for Sunday. It’s a $116 Pick & Pray, with winners earning a $1,500 spot in the “Super Q” at Xpressbet on July 18.
Sunday also brings you the second qualifier of the weekend to The BIG One. Note that this one will be run in Live format. The entry fee remains $395, and one grand prize is certain to be awarded no matter how many (or few!) sign up. After this weekend, the cash component of the prize pool for The BIG One is sure to get into six figures.
Another Big Bucks tourney is set for Sunday. This one is a live-format game too (unlike on Saturday). The buy-in is again $1,150, and the guaranteed purse is $7,500. Once again, as with all Big Bucks events, sign ups are limited to 20, and prizes are distributed only to the top three scorers.
Another rich cash competition is Sunday’s $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit tourney. The buy-in for this Pick & Pray battle is considerably less, though—$195.
We’re back to Live format for our up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed. The entry fee for this one—which requires competitors to select a three-horse exacta box in each contest race—is $125.
Also Live is our $8 Pick 6 Jackpot game. In this event, 70% of the net pool gets paid to top finishers via the normal, $2 win/place scoring method, while the other 30% gets directed to the Jackpot pool. You win (or share) the Jackpot if you pick the winners of all six races. This week, the Jackpot starts out at $14,698.
We are concluding our list of Sunday featured events at HorseTourneys with the $165, 2-seats-guaranteed NHC qualifier…because that also happens to be where the HorsePlayers Sunday schedule begins!
The 1-per-65 NHC play-in at HorseTourneys is a Pick & Pray. The one on Sunday at HorsePlayers is identical in nature—except that the format will be Live.
Also to be run in Live format is Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier with an entry fee of $500, and a winning ratio of 1-per-23. At least one $10,000 BCBC entry is certain to be awarded no matter what.
As we wish you a happy and safe Fourth of July weekend, we realize that the “safe” part has taken on additional meaning this year. Nevertheless, please do enjoy the Fourth however—and with whomever—you elect to spend it. And if you spend just a little bit of it with us, we’ll be delighted. Good luck!