Del Mar is back this weekend—and so are our qualifiers to the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge. We hope Del Mar stays with us now right through Labor Day, but we know Pick Your Prize qualifiers will only be with us for one more day.
The Pick Your Prize tournament—replete with NHC seats, BCBC entries and cash—takes place at Xpressbet (TVG for New Jersey residents) on Saturday. So if you still want to earn a $2,000 entry, you must do so on Friday. The final “PYP” qualifier carries a buy-in of $118 and is a 1-per-20 Pick & Pray.
There’s a qualifier each day of the weekend for the August 15-16 Spa & Surf Showdown, whose guaranteed purse is up to $203,550, and that figure will increase with each additional qualifier. Winners of our qualifiers receive a $2,000 entry to the all-cash competition here at HorseTourneys. 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. Friday’s format is Pick & Pray.
Cash-gamers will have their milieu in Friday’s $10,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. Entries here are $190 each. There is no limit as to how high the purse could go. Last Friday’s closed at $16,500.
Over at HorsePlayers, there’s one qualifier on Friday for the NHC and one for the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
Friday’s $75 NHC Pick & Pray will hand out at least two seats to the big dance, and NHC Tour points on the table for the top 10% of the field. It’s a Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1 in 143.
The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge play-in is a Low Ratio Pick & Pray. At least one $10,000 entry is assured to be in the prize pool in this $500 competition. The winning ratio here is a low 1-per-23.
Contest races are the 6th through 8th from Laurel; the 6th through 10th at the Spa; and the 2nd and 3rd from the “Welcome Back” card at Del Mar—10 in all.
On Saturday, we’ll be rooting for all of our Pick Your Prize qualifiers to be doing well—and we’ll also be hosting 10 important events of our own.
You already know that we’re offering another $113 Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier. Note that Saturday’s version will be run in Live format.
Another live-format affair is our $25,000 Guaranteed No Limit cash tourney. This one has an entry fee of $260.
Saturday’s qualifier to the Ruidoso Handicapping Challenge—an onsite tournament on August 29—is also a live-format contest. One of every 10 entries, at $48 each, will win a $400 spot in the New Mexico confab, where two NHC seats will be guaranteed.
The $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourney is always a live-format event. As of last weekend, we added a Saturday game to the weekly schedule (to go with the existing Sunday game). In our Pick 6 Jackpot tourneys, 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 at $16,316.
The $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourney races for Saturday are the 8th and 9th from Saratoga; the 12th and 13th at Monmouth; and the 3rd and 5th from Del Mar. Six races…56 betting interests before scratches.
The rest of the Saturday features here at HorseTourneys will be Pick & Prays.
One of them is our $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks competition. It has an $1,150 buy-in and signups are limited to 20, though occasionally the field will top that number slightly due to last-minute feeders. The purse for this Pick & Pray could hit $20,000 or more. Payouts go to just the top three finishers—divvied up on a 70%/20%/10% basis.
HorseTourneys is delighted to have an NHC qualifier over on this side of the street this Saturday. It’s a “regular,” $165 Pick & Pray with two spots certain.
Another Pick & Pray is our Saturday qualifier to The BIG One. The grand prize includes an upfront cash payment of $500 plus a fully paid-up entry to the finals on September 19-20. The buy-in here is $395, and no more than 27 entries will be permitted. 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 $108,672 (and counting). Finishers 11-15 get a choice of either $1,500 or a Horse Player World Series entry. The BIG One will be held here at HorseTourneys this year and the final field in September will be made up of no more than 57 entries (50 online qualifiers plus up to seven buy-ins). So if you get to The BIG One, you have a much-higher-than-usual chance of winning a really good prize.
Saturday also brings with it the second of three weekend opportunities for you to win a $2,000 entry to the Monmouth Pick Your Prize event. Winning a Pick Your Prize entry on Haskell Day may perhaps give you a little extra dose of confidence on July 25th since the Pick Your Prize competition will be contested solely on Monmouth races this year.
There are three featured tourneys at HorsePlayers on Saturday—two tied to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge and one associated with the NHC.
The “regular” Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier with one grand prize guaranteed carries an entry fee of $179. It’s a Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1-per-65.
The winning ratio is only 1-per-11 in Saturday’s live-format Super Low Ratio BCBC qualifier. It also guarantees at least one winner. Here, the entry fee is $1,000.
The NHC qualifier is a $165 “Maiden Special” with one winner guaranteed. It is restricted to those who have yet to earn a 2021 seat and, as such it will not offer True points. The winning ratio is 1-per-65, and the format is Live.
The 12 contest races on Saturday are: Races 6,7,8,9 and 11 at Saratoga; the 9th through 13th from Monmouth; and the 3rd and 5th at Del Mar.
Ten more features are on tap for Sunday. All of them will be conducted as Live-format events.
One of the Sunday tests is a $175, live-format qualifier to the Travers Online Challenge at Xpressbet. Details are still forthcoming about the format and prize pool of the “TOC,” but entries to the August 8 contest will cost $3,000 and you can win one of those here on Sunday for the aforementioned $175 entry fee. (1-per-20 winning ratio).
An entry fee of $195 will get you in to Sunday’s $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit cash tourney.
Sunday means, of course, weekend qualifier #3 to the Spa & Surf Showdown. Like Saturday’s, this one is a live-format tourney with a $113 entry fee. Winners get a $2,000 entry to the $203,550 (and counting) cash game here on August 15-16.
A guaranteed berth is on the line in Sunday’s $395 qualifier to The BIG One. Normally conducted at Laurel Park, “The high-expectation tournament” will take place here this year on September 19-20.
A Sunday mainstay is our $7,500 Guaranteed Big Bucks tourney. The pot could grow to as high as $20,000 depending on participation, but it won’t be less than $7,500. The entry fee is $1,150, and payoffs go only to the top three finishers.
The second of the weekend’s two $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourneys takes place on Sunday.. Check out our Twitter feed on Saturday night for an update on the Jackpot amount. It will depend on how many people take a shot at the Saturday Jackpot ($16,316)…and whether anyone hits it.
We also have an NHC Low Ratio qualifier for $500. Note that this game must attract at least 10 entries for it to “go.”
And don’t forget about our up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed. This game calls upon contestants to pick a three-horse exacta box in each contest race. The entry fee is $125, and no payoff caps are in effect.
The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge and the NHC share the live-format stage at HorsePlayers on Sunday.
One $10,000 entry is guaranteed to be awarded in Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier, which carries an entry fee of $500 and a winning ratio of 1-per-23.
The NHC play-in is a “regular,” $165 tourney with a winning ratio of 1-in-65
Here’s an early heads up regarding Travers weekend (next week!).
We’ll have both a $60,000 Guaranteed live cash game and a $20,000 Pick & Pray a week from Saturday.
In the meantime, enjoy all of the racing—and the baseball—THIS weekend. Good luck and…play ball!