Eighteen featured events are on the slate this weekend as we march onward to the Breeders’ Cup (where even more lucrative tourneys await). Whether your focus is money, the NHC, the BCBC, the $150,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff or all of the above, you’ll find plenty this weekend to entertain and engage you. It all starts on Friday.
TGIF day is your last chance to earn a $3,000 entry to Saturday’s Keeneland Fall NHC/BCBC Online Challenge, which will be hosted at Xpressbet. The entry fee for this 1-per-20 Pick & Pray is $175.
The competition that figures to attract the most players this weekend is also part of the Friday schedule—our $75 NHC Pick & Pray with two seats guaranteed. It’s one of the cheapest routes to Vegas…and also an economical way to pick up some NHC Tour points.
On Friday (and also on Sunday), you can take a shot at qualifying for the $150,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff on January 8th and 9th. It’s $118 to play, and one of every 15 entries will advance. The Flo-Cal Faceoff is the first leg of the new Tourney Triple series made up of the Flo-Cal Faceoff, the Players Championship and the Spa & Surf Showdown. Tournament seats await the top three overall series performers, and if you win two of the three events, you earn a $1 million bonus. Win all three, and you pocket $2 million.
The Friday focus for cash gamers is our $10,000 Guaranteed, No Limit Pick & Pray. Entries are $190 apiece.
Again this weekend, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge has the spotlight to itself at HorsePlayers.
Friday’s BCBC qualifier is a Low Ratio Pick & Pray. At least one $10,000 entry is certain to be won in this $500 event. The winning ratio is 1-per-23.
Friday contest races are the 6th, 7th, 8th and 10th from Belmont; the 7th through 10th at Keeneland; and the 6th and 7th from Santa Anita—10 races in all.
There are four featured events at HorseTourneys on Saturday, including a special NHC qualifier.
It’s special because its a “Maiden Special”…only for players who have yet to earn a 2021 seat. It’s a live-format, $165 tourney with one seat guaranteed and a winning ratio of 1-per-65. (So if 130 of you turn out, there will be two seats up for grabs.) Due to the restricted nature of this competition, NHC Tour points will not be on the table here.
The richest tourney of the weekend is Saturday’s $25,000 Guaranteed, No Limit Pick & Pray. An entry fee of $260 gets you in the door. Once inside, you can sit anywhere you’d like.
There’s also Saturday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks Pick & Pray. The entry fee is a not-insignificant $1,150, and the field is limited to 20, unless there are late entries due to last-minute feeders. As always with Big Bucks events, payoffs go only to the top three finishers—on a 70%/20%/10% basis.
The $8 Pick 6 Jackpot remains unhit. That means that Saturday’s game will start out with $24,886 already in the till for anyone (or ones) who can go 6-for-6. Seventy percent of net entry fees get paid out via traditional win/place scoring totals while 30% gets directed to the Jackpot.
The Pick 6 Jackpot races on Saturday are the 8th and 9th (both Grade I stakes) at Belmont; and the 2nd through 5th from Santa Anita. Across the six races, there are just 37 betting interests before scratches. The entry deadline will fall at approximately 4:14 pm ET.
There are two Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifiers on the Saturday board at HorsePlayers.
Saturday’s “regular” BCBC qualifier 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 assures at least one winner—even if fewer than 11 participate. The entry fee here is $1,000.
Your 12-race mission on Saturday, should you choose to accept it, will be the 5th, 6th, 8th and 9th from Keeneland; the 8th and 10th at Belmont; the 7th through 10th from Woodbine; and races 4 and 6 at Santa Anita. Try not to self-destruct.
There’s plenty more money—and contest seats—to fight over on Sunday.
It’ll be Vegas Ho next August if you win Sunday’s “regular,” $165, live-format NHC qualifier with two spots guaranteed. The winning ratio is 1-per-65.
It’ll be Laptop Ho next January if you win Sunday’s Pick & Pray qualifier to the Flo-Cal Faceoff. But that game pays pretty well too! ($150,000 Guaranteed) It’s $118 to enter and one of every 15 will earn a $1,500 entry.
Another Pick & Pray is Sunday’s $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit cash tourney. The entry fee is $195. As always with No-Limit games, there’s always room for one more. The more that play, the more we pay.
The Sunday Big Bucks tourney guarantees a purse of $7,500, though the pot for this Live-format event could reach $20,000 or more depending on how many sign up. The entry fee is $1,150, and payoffs go just to the top three finishers.
Our up-to-$5,000 Exacta tourney with $1,000 Guaranteed is always run in Live format. In this 12-race game, you come up with a three-horse exacta box for each race, and scores are based on the cumulative $1returns across the 12 races. The entry fee is $125, and no payoff caps are in effect.
The second of the weekend’s two $8 Pick 6 Jackpot tourneys is set for Sunday. Check 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 participate in the Saturday Jackpot game (carryover: $24,866) and whether anyone hit it. Like the Exacta tourney, the Pick 6 Jackpot game is always done in live-format.
Still hoping to land a spot at the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge? HorsePlayers is where you need to be on Sunday.
A Low Ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier with a winning ratio of 1-per-23 is the Sunday HorsePlayers feature. The entry fee is $500 for the live-format tourney, and at least one $10,000 entry is guaranteed to be won. It’s a 1-per-23 game, so if we can get up to 46 entries, there will be a second $10,000 ticket in the prize pool.
Enjoy the races from coast to coast, good luck in spotting a Breeders’ Cup horse or two that you like, and—more importantly—knock ‘em dead in your tourneys this weekend!