It’s Labor Day weekend coming up—which means it’s your last chance to play Saratoga and Del Mar for a while. And on Monday, you can become the first to qualify for the January 9-10 Flo-Cal Faceoff—a $150,000 Guaranteed event focusing solely on full-card racing from Gulfstream and Santa Anita. As announced just this week, the Faceoff, whose inaugural edition (worth $225,000) was won by Thomas Blosser of Cornville, Arizona, will serve as the first leg of the 2021 Tourney Triple series which offers a $2 million bonus should someone sweep all three legs, a $1 million bonus for winning two out of three and valuable tournament seats to the top three overall performers during the three competitions.
So there’s a lot to look forward to this weekend. The featured-tourney excitement begins on Friday.
The Friday cash feature at HorseTourneys is our $10,000 Guaranteed No Limit tourney. Entries here are $190 each, and the format is Pick & Pray.
Friday’s qualifier to the Keeneland Fall NHC/BCBC Online Challenge is a Pick & Pray as well. You can get win a $3,000 entry to the October 10 competition at Xpressbet for just $175 here. The winning ratio is 1-per-20.
Another tournament in which the races take place in Kentucky but you play from home is the September 13 and 16 Kentucky Downs Turf Handicapping Challenge (held at Xpressbet). The Kentucky Downs event(s) will be run as two separate, stand-alone tournaments with a $1,000 entry fee on the 13th and a $600 charge for the 16th. You can win cash and NHC seats in both—plus there will be additional prizes for those who have the best combined score across the two days. Winners of our 10-race Pick & Pray on Friday receive $1,600 in entry fees—enough to cover both days at Xpressbet.
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 award a minimum of two seats, and NHC Tour points will also be up for grabs 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 game is a Low Ratio Pick & Pray. At least one $10,000 entry is certain to be won in this $500 event. The winning ratio here is 1-per-23.
Friday contest races are the 7th through 12th from Woodbine; the 7th and 8th at Laurel; and the 2nd and 3rd from Del Mar—10 races in all.
Two All Optional Live tourneys (in which you make 10 plays from 25 available races) are among seven featured events on Saturday.
One of the “AOLs” is the co-richest tourney of the weekend—Saturday’s $25,000 Guaranteed competition. It’ carries an entry fee of $260. Keep an eye out for an overlay possibility here…just in case people are paying too much attention, for some reason, to non-HorseTourneys tracks!
The other Saturday All Optional Live tourney is something of a rarity—an NHC qualifier run in AOL format. It’s $165 to play and two seats are guaranteed regardless of participation.
Our traditional, 12-race tourneys on Saturday include the day’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks Pick & Pray for $1,150. The field for this competition is limited to 20, barring any late entries due to last-minute feeders. If the game is sold out, the purse will rise to over $20,000. Payoffs go out only to the top three—on a 70%/20%/10% basis.
Another Pick & Pray is Saturday’s qualifier to The BIG One. The grand prize is an entry to The BIG One on September 19-20 plus $500 in cash. (Just seven online seats remain available.) The buy-in here is $395, and entries for this qualifier are capped at 27. 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 $153,275 (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 consist of no more than 57 entries (50 online qualifiers plus up to seven buy-ins). So if you get in to The BIG One, you have a better-than-usual chance to win a good prize.
The format is Live (as always) for the $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourney which now has a carryover of $21,291. That (plus Saturday’s addition) is what will be won or shared if anyone can go 6-for-6. Seventy percent of net entry fees (at $8 each) get paid out via traditional win/place scoring totals while 30% gets directed to the Jackpot. The Pick 6 Jackpot races this week are the 8th and 9th at Laurel, the 9th and 11th from Saratoga; and the 2nd and 3rd at Del Mar. There are just 42 betting interests—before scratches—across the six races.
Over at HorsePlayers, there are two Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifiers scheduled.
Saturday’s “regular” BCBC play-in has one grand prize guaranteed and carries an entry fee of $179. It’s a live-format tourney with a winning ratio of 1-per-65.
The winning ratio is just 1-per-11 in Saturday’s Super Low Ratio BCBC Pick & Pray. It also guarantees at least one winner no matter how many or few sign up. The entry fee here is $1,000.
The contest races for the 12-race mandatory tourneys on Saturday at both HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers are: Races 9-12 from Saratoga; races 10 and 11 at Laurel; and the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th from Del Mar.
The 25 available races from which you can make 10 plays in the two All Optional Live events at HorseTourneys are the 7th through 11th at Laurel, the 7th through 12th from the Spa; the full 11-race card at Del Mar and the 10th through 12th at Gulfstream.
Three more AOLs are on tap among seven featured games on Sunday (all right here at HorseTourneys).
You can pick your best 10 out of 25 in search of a guaranteed berth to The BIG One in Sunday’s live-format, $395 qualifier to The BIG One. Again, the field for The BIG One on September 19-20 (very soon!) will number no more than 57—50 via online qualifiers plus up to seven buy-ins.
All Optional Live is also the format in play for Sunday’s $15,000 Guaranteed tourney. The entry fee is $195.
Also in All Optional Live format is Sunday’s $7,500 Guaranteed Big Bucks contest. The pot could exceed $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.
Sunday’s qualifier to the Keeneland Fall NHC/BCBC Online Challenge will be a traditional 12-race, live-format game. Winners earn a $3,000 entry to the October 10 competition at Xpressbet. The entry fee is $175, and the winning ratio is 1-per-20.
The second of two weekend qualifiers to the September 13 and 16 Kentucky Downs Turf Handicapping Challenge (held at Xpressbet) takes place on Sunday. Winners of our 12-race, live-format qualifier on Sunday receive $1,600 in entry fees—enough to cover both days of competition at Xpressbet.
Our up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed is also always contested in live-format. Players in this 12-race affair select a three-horse exacta box in each race. Winners receive scores based on a $1 mythical play. The entry fee is $125, and no payoff caps are in effect.
The second of the weekend’s two $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourneys takes place on Sunday. Check out our Twitter feed on Saturday night or our home page on Sunday for an update on what the Jackpot will be. It will be based on how many people take a shot at the Saturday Jackpot (which starts out at $21,291)…and whether anyone hits it. The Pick 6 Jackpot competition is always a live-format game.
We have six Labor Day features on Monday, including three very important games here at HorseTourneys.
One of them is that first qualifier to the $150,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff that we mentioned at the beginning. It’s an $86 Pick & Pray with one of every 20 participants earning a $1,500 entry to Leg 1 of the 2021 Tourney Triple.
Remember when we said that Saturday’s $25,000 tourney was the “co-richest” of the weekend? That’s because we’re running another $25,000 game on Monday. It’s a Pick & Pray with an entry fee of $260. And since it’s a No Limit game, the more that play, the more we pay.
And there’s one more big chance this weekend to qualify for The BIG One. It’s a $395 Pick & Pray with one grand prize guaranteed, a $395 refund assured for the runner up (regardless of participation) and entries capped at 27.
Labor Day at HorsePlayers involves three featured tourneys of their own: two NHC play-ins—one for Pick & Pray fans and one for those who prefer Live-format competitions–and one BCBC qualifier
The NHC Pick & Pray is a special “Reduced Ratio” contest. The entry fee is the customary $165, but the winning ratio is 1-per-52, rather than the usual 1-per-65. Not only is there a reduced ratio, two seats are still guaranteed.
There’s also a $500, live-format, “Low Ratio” NHC qualifier with an entrance fee of $500 and a winning ratio of 1-per-17. Note that there must be at least 10 entires for this event to be run.
The BCBC game is a $500 Low Ratio Pick & Pray with a winning ratio of 1-per-23.
We should mention that Labor Day is not only closing day at Saratoga and Del Mar, but opening day at Kentucky Downs too. So look for some of their grass races to be included in the Monday mix.
May you all have a happy, safe and profitable long weekend. Enjoy the time off and, yes, enjoy the Derby too!