Presidents Day means four days of featured-tourney weekend action rather than the usual three. Sprinkled into the mix are two new offerings on Saturday and one on Sunday.
We kick things off, though, on Friday—and, relatively speaking, it’s a pretty loaded schedule.
The big cash game of the day is our $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. The entry fee is $190.
Already, 73 players have secured their spots in the $200,000 Guaranteed Players Championship here on April 2-3. Friday’s “PC” qualifier carries an entry fee of $156 and one of every 15 contestants will pick up $2,000 entries to the middle leg of the Tourney Triple…which offers the top three overall performers seats to such events as the NHC, the BCBC and The BIG One.
Keeneland Grade One Gamble qualifiers have been very popular thus far, so we added a Friday opportunity to the schedule. It’s $207 to play in this Pick & Pray, and one of every 20 participants receives a $3,500 package ($3,000 entry fee plus $500 for travel) to compete in the April 19th event. You can do so on the 19th from Keeneland or from Xpressbet.
Coming up in just a few weeks is the TSG Ultimate Betting Challenge on March 6th. On Friday, you can win a $3,000 seat to this Xpressbet event. The barrier to entry for the Pick & Pray is $236, and one in 15 advance.
Also on March 6th is the NYRA Bets Gotham Challenge. Seats are worth $3,000 there as well…so it’s mainly the same setup here as for the TSG Ultimate Betting Challenge. Entry fee: $236; winning ratio: 1-per-15.
HorsePlayers returns to the Friday featured lineup this week with an always-popular event.
It’s a $75 Pick & Pray qualifier to the 2022 NHC. Two seats are guaranteed to be awarded, and the winning ratio is 1-per-143.
Contest races for the Friday features are the 7th through 9th at Tampa Bay Downs; the 1st, 3rd and 5th from Santa Anita; and the 7th through 10th at Gulfstream—10 races in all.
On Saturday, the new element to the HorseTourneys schedule is our first qualifier to the 2021 Monmouth Pick Your Prize tournament.
Come June 12th, Pick Your Prize entries will cost $2,000 a pop. On Saturday, you can win one for $156 in a live-format, 1-per-15 qualifier. Win this and you’ll be competing for NHC seats, BCBC entries and cash galore at the Jersey Shore.
Our richest tourney of the week is Saturday’s $25,000 Guaranteed No Limit game. The entry fee is $260, and it’s a live-format competition this week.
Saturday’s “up-to-$20,000” Big Bucks game is always run as a Pick & Pray. The purse is guaranteed to be at least $10,000, and entries are limited to 20 (unless we get a late arrival or two via early Saturday feeders). Payoffs go only to the top three finishers with the winner sweeping up 70 percent of the net pool, the runner up getting 20 percent, and the third-place finisher earning the remaining 10 percent. The entry fee for this high-end game is $1,150.
We’ll also have a live-format, multitrack qualifier to the Players Championship—with one of every 15 entrants, at $156 per entry, receiving a $2,000 berth in the all-cash, two-day extravaganza that will be held here as an All Optional Live contest on April 2-3.
The carryover into Saturday’s $15 Pick 4 Jackpot is up to $1,695. In our Pick 4 Jackpot tourneys, if you go four-for-four, you win or share the Jackpot. Meanwhile, 70% of the net pool gets paid out to players via the traditional $2.00 win/place scoring system. (The other 30% goes to the Jackpot pool.) Entries in these Jackpot Pick 4 games—always run as Pick & Prays—are limited to three per person.
The Pick 4 Jackpot races on Saturday are all from Santa Anita—races 4, 6, 7 and 8.
HorsePlayers has two featured events on Saturday, and one of them is a very special NHC qualifier.
The NHC play-in is a live-format, $500 game that is simultaneously a qualifier for the 2021 NHC and for the 2022 NHC. The winning ratio is 1-per-20 and two seats to each event are guaranteed. The way this “First Chance/Last Chance” competition works is that if you have yet to earn two seats to the August 2021 NHC, you will be playing for that prize. If you have already earned two 2021 NHC seats, then you will be competing for a 2022 spot. The two guaranteed seats to each event cover the first 80 entries. For every 20 entries that are received above 80 (e.g. 100, 120, 140, etc.), an additional 2021 seat will be added to the prize pool.
The other Saturday HorsePlayers feature is a live-format $179 qualifier to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge with a winning ratio of 1 per 65 and at least one $10,000 entry guaranteed.
The 12 Saturday contest races for our multitrack features are the 8th through 10th from Tampa Bay Downs; the 9th through 11th at Gulfstream; and the 4th through 9th from Santa Anita.
Sunday is Valentine’s Day and, we think you’ll agree, there’s no better way to make your sweetheart proud than by winning our very first qualifier to the 2021 The BIG One.
The BIG One will once again be held online here at HorseTourneys in 2021. The dates are September 18th and 19th. It’s an All Optional Live event that is limited to a maximum of 57 entrants (and no more than one per person).
The field size might be small, but the prizes are not. There is a guaranteed prize pool of at least $150,000 that will be shared among the top 15 finishers. Finish in the top 10, and things get even richer. The top 10 get a choice of a 2022 NHC seat, a 2021 BCBC entry or a 2022 Pegasus World Cup entry. Those who choose the Pegasus get an extra $4,000 so as to bring the prize up to the $10,000 level. Two of the 10 awarded must be NHC seats so that the event can award NHC Tour Points. So if no one in the top 8 pick an NHC spot, finishers 9 and 10 automatically get NHC packages.
As for Sunday’s live-format qualifier, the entry fee is $395, one package is guaranteed to be won regardless of participation, and entries are capped at 27. The first-place finisher also gets a $500 winner’s bonus. The runner up gets a consolation prize of $395.
Elsewhere on the Valentine’s Day front, there’s your second opportunity of the weekend (see Friday) to earn a $3,500 package ($3,000 entry plus $500 for travel) to the Keeneland Grade One Gamble on April 19th. One of every 20 entrants in this live-format tourney, at $207 apiece, will secure his or her spot in the live-bankroll contest which will be contested at both Keeneland and Xpressbet.
Sunday is also your second chance of the weekend to earn a NYRA Bets Gotham Challenge seat for March 6th. An entry fee of $236 gets you into the starting gate. One in 15 will earn a $3,000 entry.
The winning ratio is also one per 15 for Sunday’s TSG Ultimate Betting Challenge qualifier. The entry fee here is also $236 and, similar to the NYRA Bets Gotham play-in, one of every 15 entrants will earn a $3,000 entry. Like the Gotham Challenge, the TSG Ultimate Betting Challenge takes place on March 6th (a very challenging day, no doubt.)
The Players Championship, middle leg of our Tourney Triple, is slated for April 2-3. One of every 15 in Sunday’s “PC” qualifier will grab a $2,000 seat for the $200,000 Guaranteed event here on April 2-3. The format for Sunday’s qualifier is Live.
Cashwise, the Sunday headliner is our $20,000 Guaranteed No Limit game, which is also a live-format affair this week. The entry fee is $195.
The Sunday Big Bucks tourney is also a live-format game. It has a guarantee of $7,500, and the final pot could reach $20,000 if we reach the maximum 20 entrants. The entry fee is $1,150, and prizes go solely to the first three finishers.
We’ll be offering another $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney on Sunday, though we don’t quite know yet how much it will be worth. Check our home page or our Twitter feed on Saturday night for the Jackpot carryover amount. It will depend on how many participated in Saturday’s Pick 4 Jackpot tourney—and whether anyone hit the jackpot. This, like all our Pick 4 Jackpot games, will be a Pick & Pray.
The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge is the lone occupant of the featured-tourney stage on Sunday at HorsePlayers.
It’s a live-format, low-ratio qualifier with at least one $10,000 BCBC entry certain to be awarded. The winning ratio is 1-per-23 in this $500 tourney.
Monday is Presidents Day. That means that there will be more featured tourneys that day (and that the Weekly Recap blogs will come out on Tuesday). However, those Monday tourneys have not been scheduled yet. So check back to our home page in a day or so to see what the HorseTourneys chef will be serving up for his Monday specials. Enjoy the long weekend and…good luck!