We’re raising the stakes on Saturday, Florida Derby Day. Instead of a $25,000 Guaranteed featured cash tourney, we’re upping the guarantee of this live-format event to $45,000—and tossing in a $10,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray as well.
That’s not all. For the first time, we’ll be hosting tourneys on the Dubai World Cup card from Meydan. And with the Players Championship (current purse up to $279,660 and counting) set for Friday and Saturday, April 2-3, it means that this weekend is your final one in which to qualify for the all-cash middle leg of the 2021 Tourney Triple.
So the weekend immediately in front of us promises to be a fun—and frenetic—one. It all gets started, of course, on Friday.
We’ll again offer three Friday qualifiers to the Players Championship—a 10-race multi-track Pick & Pray, plus a pair of single-track qualifiers on the Gulfstream and Santa Anita cards. All carry an equal entry fee, $156, and have a winning ratio of 1 per 15.
Reminder: Along with January’s Flo-Cal Face-off and this August’s Spa & Surf Showdown, the Players Championship is part of the 2021 Tourney Triple…which offers the top three overall performers seats to such events as the NHC (2022), the BCBC and The BIG One. You can also win a million-dollar bonus if you capture both the Players Championship and the Spa & Surf Showdown. (And if Flo-Cal Face-off winner Alan Levitt wins either, HE gets a $1 million bonus.)
Friday also represents your very last chance to win an entry into Saturday’s Florida Derby Challenge at Xpressbet. Entries cost $118, and 1 of every 15 will earn a $1,500 seat.
You can also win a spot Friday in the Keeneland Grade One Gamble. Friday’s Pick & Pray carries an entry fee of $207, with one of every 20 players winning a $3,500 package ($3,000 entry fee plus $500 for travel). Those not wishing to participate in person at Keeneland can play the Gamble online at Xpressbet.
Set for Memorial Day is the Lone Star Million Betting Championship. Winners of Friday’s $177 Pick & Pray (1 of every 20) get a $2,000 entry plus $500 for travel to the May 31st test deep in the heart of Texas.
There’s also a Friday Monmouth Pick Your Prize play-in. One of every 15 entries, at $156 per entry, earns a $2,000 seat for the June 12th competition on the Saturday after the Belmont Stakes. It can be played on the 12th at Monmouth, at Xpressbet or—if you live in New Jersey—4NJBets.
Cash games are always an important component of the weekend fun. You can play Friday’s $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray for $190, and there’s never any limit as to how high the purse can grow.
At HorsePlayers, the Friday feature is an always-popular $75 qualifier to the 2022 NHC.
It’s a Pick & Pray with two seats guaranteed. The winning ratio is 1-per-143, and if we reach 429 entrants, we’ll toss in a a third grand prize. Keep in mind that the big fields in these $75 games mean a healthy portion of NHC Tour points get awarded to those who finish in the top 10 percent of the field.
Contest races for the Friday features are the 6th, through 8th at Aqueduct; the 7th through 10th from Gulfstream; and the 3rd through 5th from Santa Anita—10 races in all.
On Saturday, it’s not just about Florida Derby Day. You can start your morning off with contest action on the Dubai World Cup card.
And there are more World Cup day tourneys on the home page if you keep scrolling. We’re skipping race 1 at Meydan because it’s really early—and because it’s an Arabian race—but the other 8 races are all there for your handicapping pleasure. Gambling may not be welcomed in the United Arab Emirates, but it’s not frowned upon here at HorseTourneys.
On to the Saturday featured schedule!
The headline is the special $45,000 Guaranteed, No Limit cash tourney that we mentioned at the top. It’s a live-format event with an entry fee of $260.
Since it’s such a big day, we also added a $10,000 Pick & Pray to the featured festivities. You can get in the door to this one for $190.
Another guaranteed $10,000 is up for grabs in Saturday’s “up-to-$20,000” Big Bucks Pick & Pray. Entries are limited to 20 (unless we get a late arrival or two from last-minute Saturday feeders). Payoffs go only to the top three finishers with the winner taking 70 percent of the net pool, the runner up getting 20 percent, and the third-place finisher picking up the remaining 10 percent. The entry fee for this high-end, short-field game is $1,150.
We have three more Players Championship qualifiers on Saturday. There’s our live-format multi-track contest, along with Gulfstream and Santa Anita single-track, full-card play-ins. (Note the early 11:30 am ET start at Gulfstream on Saturday.) In each case, one of every 15 entrants, at $156 each, will receive a $2,000 seat in the all-cash, two-day, All Optional Live tourney that will be held here on Friday and Saturday, April 2-3.
Saturday’s Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier also insists upon an entry fee of $156 and also offers a $2,000 seat as its grand prize. On June 12th, Pick Your Prize contestants will be competing for NHC seats, BCBC entries and cash. The format here on Saturday is Live.
Also in Live format is Saturday’s play-in to the April 10th Keeneland Grade One Gamble. An up-front investment of $207 buys you a 1-in-20 chance at winning a $3,500 package to the land of the bluegrass (or the land of Xpressbet, if you prefer).
Rex Robinson cleaned us out in last Sunday’s $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney, so the pot starts anew this Saturday at a seeded starting point of $250. T\ In our Pick 4 Jackpot games, if you go four-for-four, you win or share the Jackpot. (You don’t have to have the only perfect ticket.) 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 tourneys—always run as Pick & Prays—are limited to three per person.
Saturday’s Pick 4 Jackpot races will be the 13th and 14th from Gulfstream and the 5th and 6th at Santa Anita. If the two tracks stay true to their post times, this 4-race sequence will only take 45 minutes to complete.
There’s double-barrel action at HorsePlayers on Florida Derby Day.
If you liked Friday’s $75 NHC qualifier, you’ll probably also enjoy Saturday’s $100 qualifier. This one is a live-format play-in with a winning ratio of 1-per-100. Again two seats in Vegas at the 2022 event are guaranteed.
One seat to the 2021 event is guaranteed in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier. This one costs $179 to play, and the format is also Live here.
The 12 Saturday contest races are the 9th through 14th (the last five of which are stakes) from Gulfstream; the 7th through 10th (all starter stakes) at Aqueduct; and the 5th and 6th from Santa Anita. The final race of the 12-race sequence is the 11-horse Florida Derby at 6:40 pm ET.
On Sunday we offer 15 featured tourneys—14 here and one at HorsePlayers.
Four of them are Players Championship qualifiers. There’s our two $156 single-track games (Gulfstream and Santa Anita), our weekly All Optional Live game (also $156), in which you make 10 plays from among 25 races, and a $472 live-format, Low Ratio play-in with a winning ratio of just 1-in-5.
The Sunday NHC qualifier is right here at HorseTourneys this week. It’s a Pick & Pray with the customary entry fee of $165—and the customary two berths guaranteed.
Of course, there’s Sunday’s $20,000 Guaranteed No Limit cash game. The entry fee is $195, and it’s a live-format event this week.
The Sunday Big Bucks tourney is always 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 just to the top three.
Sunday is the day for your once-a-week chance to qualify for The BIG One. Sunday’s play-in is a $395 live-format competition, and one package is certain to be awarded regardless of participation…though the qualifier, itself, will be capped at a maximum of 27 entries. The first-place finisher on Sunday also gets a $500 winner’s bonus. The runner up receives a $395 consolation prize. Keep in mind that when The BIG One rolls around in September, the field will be limited to no more than 57, with each entrant playing just one entry in his or quest for major-tournament seats and plenty of cash.
We have a brand new qualifier among this Sunday’s options. It’s a $118 play-in to the April 3rd Santa Anita Derby Challenge at Xpressbet. One of every 15 in this live-format get-together will receive a $1,500 entry for a week from Saturday.
There’s also a Sunday qualifier to another April 3rd tournament, the Wood Memorial Challenge to be held at NYRA Bets. In this one, $236 entry fee gets you a 1-in-15 chance at landing a $3,000 entry.
You can also win a spot on Sunday for the Lone Star Million Betting Challenge. The Lone Star Challenge is the climax of three consecutive days of contest action in Grand Prairie, Tex. Sunday’s qualifier carries an entry fee of $177, and one entry per 20 will pick up a $2,000 entry for May 31st contest, plus $500 for travel to Texas.
Sunday is your second chance of the weekend (Friday being the first) to earn a place in the Florida Derby Challenge ($118 entry fee, 1-per-15 winning ratio). The format is Live.
Sunday’s Keeneland Grade One Gamble qualifier should send another player or two to one of the popular events on any contest calendar. One of every 20 entrants, at $207 per entry, will win a $3,500 package ($3,000 entry plus $500 for travel) for April 10th. The Grade One Gamble can be played at either Keeneland or Xpressbet. So if you don’t wish to go to Lexington for the Gamble, you can play from home and keep the travel stipend.
We’ll have another $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourney (always a Pick & Pray) on Sunday. We don’t know what the jackpot will be as yet. (It will depend on how many played in Saturday’s Pick 4 Jackpot tourney—and whether anyone hit it.) Check our home page or our Twitter feed on Saturday night for updates.
Another Pick & Pray (a fairly rare offering this particular weekend) is the Sunday feature at HorsePlayers.
It’s a low-ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier with at least one $10,000 BCBC entry guaranteed. It costs $500 to play, and the winning ratio is 1-per-23.
If all of our featured tourneys “fill”, there will be a total of 35 of them this weekend—and that doesn’t include the Dubai World Cup games. So be sure to maintain a good charge on that phone or laptop. You’re going to need it. And we wish you good luck. That might come in handy as well.