Two weekends ago, a preponderance of Pick & Prays prompted a plethora of multiple winners. Still, no one had a day then like Michael “The Coach” Goodrich had this past Saturday.
So what if this was a live-format weekend? Goodrich had 12 horses that he liked, and he was sticking to them.
The Lincoln City-led dozen provided Goodrich with his biggest—but far from his only—reward in Saturday’s $25,000 cash tourney.
The winner’s share here—from a final pot of $31,753—was $14,289.
Another five-figure payday lurked over at HorsePlayers.
Saturday was also our first qualifier to the June 12th Monmouth Pick Your Prize tournament, and Goodrich was at the front of the line for that one too.
Bruce Dagostini was second in line with his 3 wins and 2 places, and that got Dagostini a $2,000 entry as well.
Turns out that Michael Goodrich had a little room left in his cart, so he stopped by the Players Championship aisle before checking out.
Congratulations also to Robert Pennell and Ryan McCarthy, who finished second and third, respectively, behind Goodrich and, like Goodrich, earned $2,000 entries to the $200,000 Guaranteed all-cash event here on April 2-3.
As if to prove that he was no one-day wonder, Goodrich stopped by on Monday and picked up yet another Players Championship entry.
Here “The Coach” was third behind Paul Weizer (3 wins, 2 places) and Marc Racenstein (5W, 2P). It was a “three seater,” though, thanks to there being 52 entries, so Goodrich will have double-barrel “PC” action come the first weekend in April.
This Presidents Day prize, combined with his other four on Saturday, meant an overall holiday weekend haul for Goodrich of $30,249 in cash and contest seats. Hail to the Chief!
The featured-tourney week began on Wednesday, when Eric Barela, Alan Baze and Bill On’Neal added their names to the roster of 86 that have earned spots in the April 2-3 Players Championship thus far.
Barela had 2 places followed by 4 winners to lead the way. If this had been a horse race, Baze and O’Neal would have been credited with having picked up the “minor awards.” But in a 3-seat qualifier, second and third pays as well as first, so consider their awards “major” as well!
The major cash award of Wednesday went to Steve Pavich.
Pavich nailed 5-1 winners in each of the final two tourney races to finish with 4 firsts and 3 seconds and pick up the top money of $3,390 in Wednesday’s $4,000 Guaranteed cash game, which closed with a total purse of $7,534.
The major-est award on Wednesday—in terms of total value—went to Al “Forward” Roehl.
Roehl rocked 5 wins and a place, topped by Fast Loaded ($25.00, $11.60) in the 7th at Gulfstream, to defeat Michael Goodrich and secure the $3,500 package to the Keeneland Grade One Gamble on Saturday, April 10th. Roehl has the option of playing the Gamble at Keeneland or on Xpressbet.
Definitely playing at Xpressbet—at least on March 6th—will be Dan Shugar.
Shugar picked two winners and then three runners up to snag a $3,000 TSG Ultimate Betting Championship entry.
On Thursday, William Roth (4 wins, 2 places) captured the day’s featured cash game, the $2,500 Guaranteed Pick & Pray.
Key to Roth’s triumph was the fact that his runners up paid like winners—$20.60 and $14.80 in the place hole, respectively. He earned $2,730 from a final pot of $5,460.
Second best behind Roth was Anthony “Doczilla” Trezza, who pulled in $1,092. Trezza also “cashed” for $2,000 in Thursday’s Players Championship qualifier.
That’s the value of a Players Championship entry—which the Pennsylvania/New Jersey eye doctor won for spotting four victorious horses and two almost-victorious ones. All six of Trezza’s collections came over the final six contest races. Perhaps the font-size was too small in those early races.
On Friday, Cheryl Knepper, Alistair Wallbaum and Basil DeVito all punched their tickets to the 2022 NHC.
They did it on a budget too, earning their respective berths in Friday’s $75 qualifier at HorsePlayers. Knepper’s score of $118.40, built on 4 wins and a place, was the day’s highest.
NHC seat winner DeVito (4 wins, 1 place) also picked up a $2,000 entry to the Players Championship.
DeVito was able to pin all of his opponents except for qualifier champion Steve “The Admiral” Nemetz (2W, 2P). Both will be headed to leg 2 of the Tourney Triple here on April 2-3 with their entry fees already taken care of.
Another one of Friday’s NHC seat winners at HorsePlayers also enjoyed success here at HorseTourneys that same day.
In Friday’s $15,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray, it was Alistair Wallbaum (second behind Cheryl Knepper in the NHC play-in) who reigned supreme with his four winners. That quartet resulted in a payday of $8,603 for Wallbaum in a game that was ultimately worth a total of $19,118. And for the second straight day, Anthony Trezza was the runner up in the day’s featured cash event.
Who does Wallbaum most have to thank for the great day of handicapping that resulted in $8,600 plus an NHC berth? Why…his young son, of course!
If Wallbaum goes on to win the 2022 NHC, you can bet that things will be rocking that Sunday night on Stewart Avenue.
Zachary Agamenoni only had two collections on Friday, but they were good ones.
They were winners that went off at 17-1 and 9-1 and, for Agamenoni, they added up to a $3,000 TSG Ultimate Betting Championship entry for March 6th.
On Saturday, there were actually a few featured events that were NOT won by Michael Goodrich.
The most prominent of these was Saturday’s Last Chance/First Chance (Either/or?) qualifier. Two seats to both the 2021 and 2022 events were guaranteed. (The 2021 double qualifiers were playing amongst themselves and only eligible for the 2022 seats. Everyone else was playing for 2021 berths.) When the entry count was tallied up, however, no fewer than eight seats to this August’s NHC were on the line. Those wound up going to Matt Malley, Paul Cush, Luke Peltz, Tim Langlois, Brian “BC” Chenvert, Mike Yarusso, Michael “Free” Samples and Christophe Huttepain. Earning 2022 seats were Joe Johnson and Jeff Arthur.
Brett Wiener (2 wins, 3 places) was the winner of $10,686 for finishing first of 15 in Saturday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks Pick & Pray.
Final purse for this “only-the-top-three-get-paid” game was $15,266.
In Saturday’s $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney, Harris “Rh” Factor reported home first with two winners.
On Sunday, Andrew Cormier took top Pick 4 honors with just an 8-1 winner and a $15.20-to-place runner up.
Since no one on Saturday or Sunday went 4-for-4, next Saturday’s $15 Pick 4 tourney will start out with a carryover of $2,426 in the Jackpot pool.
How dominant was Quincy Cunningham on Sunday? The second-highest featured-tourney score on Sunday was $84.80. Cunningham’s best-of-day score was $38.40 in excess of that.
That performance by Cunningham came in Saturday’s Keeneland Grade One Gamble qualifier.
And that $84.80, second-best score came here as well, brought to you by James “Captain” Morgan. Fortunately, there were enough entries to award two $3,500 packages to the April 10th “Gamble,” so The Captain did not go home empty-handed.
Sunday was Valentine’s Day, of course, and the first eight featured-tourney races of the day had to leave Rick “I-65” Broth feeling forlorn. He whiffed on all eight. Broth did not allow himself to wallow in self-pity, however. Instead, he took a hard look at himself and commenced a crash self-improvement course that resulted in 2 wins plus a $22.00 place collection in the final race.
Who’s crying now? Broth thus became “The First One” to qualify for the 2021 The BIG One. In addition to his seat, he earned a $500 winner’s bonus. Ken Seeman received a $395 consolation prize for finishing second in the sold-out qualifier.
One might expect that Patrick McCarthy’s favorite holiday of the year would be St. Patrick’s Day, but this year, it will be hard for March 17th to top his February 14th.
That’s because McCarthy recorded 2 wins and 3 places to pocket $11,415 in Sunday’s $20,000 Guaranteed cash tourney. The final, total purse was $25,368.
Dennis Montoro also had a happy—and lucrative—Valentine’s Day.
Early on, Montoro posted four chalky winners that all went off no higher than 8-5. Then, in the second half of the $7,500 Guaranteed Big Bucks game, he got more aggressive and managed to add on one more winner and three places. The eight collections earned him the top prize of $7,124 in the high-end tourney that closed with a pot of $10,177.
Four players on Sunday punched their respective tickets to the $200,000 Guaranteed Players Championship.
Congratulations to Jeff Littlemore, Jeff Bussan, Mike Forzano and Kevin Engelhard.
Love was in Bloom on Sunday as 4 wins and 2 places propelled David Bloom to a $3,000 TSG Ultimate Betting Challenge entry.
Also earning a ticket to the March 6th test at Xpressbet was runner up Sean Alvarez (4W, 2P).
The hurdle to clear in Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers was $70.00.
David “Hungry Like the” Wolff (4 wins, 2 places) and Chris Grutsch (3W, 2P) were the only two to do so, and both were rewarded with $10,000 BCBC entries for their efforts.
There were three featured events on Monday, Presidents Day. We already mentioned the Players Championship qualifier that saw Paul Weizer, Marc Racenstein and Michael Goodrich emerge victorious.
Goodrich was not the only one on Monday to add on to his already successful weekend.
Al Roehl (3 wins, 2 places) and Rick Broth (4W, 1P) each won $3,500 Keeneland Grade One Gamble packages in Monday’s Pick & Pray, For Roehl, this victory served as the second half of “bookend” triumphs since he began the featured-tourney week on Wednesday by snagging a berth to this very same Keeneland event.
Broth, meanwhile, added the Keeneland prize to the entry to The BIG One that he earned just 24 hours earlier. Similar to his Sunday win, Broth came to a boil very late in the process on Monday. He had three consecutive victories late in the 12-race tourney, including After Sundown ($67.00, $18.40) in the 7th at Golden Gate. Roehl also had that Golden Gate longshot.
And so did Vic Stauffer.
After Sundown was the juiciest of four successful Stauffer selections in Monday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray. The Oaklawn track announcer—apparently snowed in down there at the moment—earned $9,501 from a final pot that weighed in at $21,113.
Thanks to all for participating during what was a somewhat-rare dual-holiday holiday weekend. Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day won’t fall on the same weekend again until 2026.
Our featured-tourney calendar at HorseTourneys is much easier to predict—marquee games every Wednesday through Sunday…and sometimes Monday. We look forward to ramping things up and doing it all again this coming week. Hope you can be with us.