Of the 25 featured tourneys from last week that we will recap here, there were 39 grand prizes earned. They were won by 37 different people in what was something of a “Share the wealth” week.
No one won two top prizes…but one person captured three.
That’s Texan (by way of Brooklyn) Jim Lisowsky. He did all his damage on Friday, and he picked three pretty good games to target.
In Friday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff Pick & Pray, Lisowsky had near-capper Aug Lutes ($41.20, $12.60 in the 7th at Belmont to finish with 3 winners and claim one of the two available $1,500 entries. The other was spoken for by Braden Selvig (2 wins, 2 places), who also liked Aug Lutes.
Lisowsky upped his game in Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers, adding a fourth winner (Gangly) to his mix.
Joseph Rosen (4 wins, 3 places) was the $10,000-seat-winning runner up here.
And it was a case of lather, rinse, repeat for Lisowsky in Friday’s $75 NHC qualifier over at the purple and red colored sister site.
In addition to having Aug Lutes like Lisowsky, Dave Cichy (3 wins, 1 place) swept the “late double” of the tourney by connecting on 10-1 and 6-1 shots at the end to snatch the highly important runner up spot.
For Lisowsky, the three bagger took much if not all of the sting out of the previous weekend—which saw him take leads into the final race of NHC and BCBC qualifiers only to get leapfrogged by several when he fell victim to a final-race longshot that he didn’t like. Some weeks chicken salad…some weeks chicken scratch.
Wednesday was a salad day for Eric Kurzhal.
He had Jessamine Stakes winner California Angel ($37.60, $14.00) on his shoulder along with four other winners that, collectively, brought him $2,700 in Wednesday’s $6.000 Guaranteed game, which had a takeout of just 8.5%.
Basil DeVito was the don in Thursday’s $5,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray.
DeVito had 3 winners plus a runner up that paid like a winner ($22.00) to collect $3,297 in a game ultimately worth a total of $7,327.
There was a special eight-race BCBC charity qualifier on Thursday at HorsePlayers.
Jay Murray had just two winners (plus a place) but they were 11-1 and 9-1 shots and that got him the sought-after $10,000 for the right-around-the-corner BCBC. Sean Nolan checked in second to grab a $5,000 partial BCBC entry.
Jim Lisowsky may have gotten the big seats, but Mark Stillmock got the big money on Friday.
Stillmock recorded 4 wins—including Belmont 19-1 proposition Aug Lutes—and a place to pocket $8,229 in Friday’s $15,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray, which closed with a purse of $18,287.
The two to clear triple figures were the two to leave with $1,000 entries in our first play-in to the November 4th BCBC Last Chance contest.
Congratulations to Bruce Dagostini (3 wins, 2 places) and Kerry Bassore. They each had Aug Lutes.
Stephen Thompson (2 wins, 1 place) didn’t have Aug Lutes.
But that didn’t stop Thompson from garnering a $1,500 entry in Friday’s Santa Anita Closing Day Challenge qualifier.
The week’s richest tourney went to Brian O’Keefe.
O’Keefe had 5 winners and accumulated the day’s highest score in capturing Saturday’s $30,000 game (an HT Tour event). He bagged $13,582 from a final pot of $30,184.
There were two winners in Saturday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier.
Congratulations to Rick Vasquez (5 wins, 1 place) and Steve “The Admiral” Nemetz (3W, 1P).
Three players secured $1,000 berths on Saturday for the Thursday, November 4th BCBC Last Chance tournament (playable at Del Mar or Xpressbet).
In the Breeders’ Cup Eve starting gate will be Andrew Asaro (5 wins, 2 places), Peter Rinato (4W, 0P) and Kevin Willett (5W, 2P).
Howard Welsh reeled in $7,123 in Saturday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks Pick & Pray.
His biggest collection among 3 firsts and 2 seconds was Happy Sophia ($30.00, $14.00) in the 9th at Belmont.
At HorsePlayers, Tim Gasaway had Happy Sophia plus New Heat ($20.40, $9.80 in the 5th at Santa Anita) among his 4 winners.
The end result was victory in Saturday’s $179 BCBC qualifier. BCBC Last Chance seat winner Andrew Asaro reported home second to get a $5,000 partial entry.
There was also a $1,000 Super Low Ratio BCBC qualifier on Saturday at HorsePlayers.
The two winners of $10,000 seats were Bernard Moore (4 wins, 3 places) and John “The Clocker” Nichols. The heavy lifter for each was Lament ($14.80, $6.50) in the 7th at Woodbine.
Neither James Smith (2 wins) on Saturday…
…nor Frank Fosbre (3W) on Sunday…
…went 4-for-4 in winning the weekend $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourneys. That means next Saturday’s $15 Jackpot will start out at $3,971.
The high scorer on Sunday (by a fairly wide margin) was John O’Brien.
Those 5 winners added up to a triumph worth $9,674 in the day’s HT Tour event, our $20,000 Guaranteed cash tourney.
The final total purse for this one came to $21,498.
Matthew Rentze did O’Brien one better…in terms of having picked 6 Sunday winners.
The six-pack meant a $1,000 entry to the November 5 Treasure Island Wager to Win contest.
There was a 2-seat NHC qualifier here at HorseTourneys on Sunday.
Mutamakina ($19.80, $8.20) in race 8, the E.P. Taylor at Woodbine, was the highest common denominator on the scoresheets of Russell Priola (5 wins, 1 place) and Shawn Heron (4W, 1P)…who both punched their tickets to the 2022 event.
Last month, Ken Seeman won $80,000+ here in The BIG One. On Sunday, he locked down his place in the next “major” at HorseTourneys.
Seeman (3 wins, 0 places) bested all but Mark Simonovic (5W, 1P) in Sunday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff play-in. They now each advance to January’s $250,000 Guaranteed competition with their $1,500 entries already taken care of.
Dr. Ron Tang picked 2 winners in capturing Sunday’s $7,500 Big Bucks tourney.
Tang correctly diagnosed Jerusalema ($31.60, $14.40) as the winner of Keeneland’s 9th race and that got him top money of $6,411 in a game ultimately worth a total of $9,159.
Zachary Agamenoni came up wit 3 winners and 1 runner up.
As a result, Agamenoni will be in the field for the Santa Anita Closing Day Challenge on Halloween at Xpressbet.
Three Sunday players earned $1,000 entries to the BCBC Last Chance contest on November 4.
Congratulations to “Captain” Frank Sorensen, Alan “The Muscle” Baze” and Eric Gielata.
Over at HorsePlayers, Guy Holloway (3 wins, 1 place) and Paul Cush (2W, 4P) were prominent throughout in Sunday’s BCBC Low Ratio Pick & Pray.
Holloway hit two pricey winners right out of the gate. So did Cush. Though that entry of his faded to 4th. Cush’s other entry, though, was a come-from-behinder that got up for second. Shrewd tactics to not have the two entries get in each other’s way early on! Ed Peters came in 3rd and grabbed a $5,000 partial BCBC spot.
Before I say goodbye for now, I thought I’d leave you with something that just made me chuckle a couple of weeks ago.
It was race 5 from Woodbine—the first race in a 43-player Keeneland qualifier. The winner in the field of 10 was a 5-1 shot. The place horse was a 57-1 bomb.
It’s never a good feeling when you’re one race in to a featured event and you find yourself having to dig yourself out of a hole. In this instance, however, no one had that feeling.
Let that be a lesson to us. In contests, the next best thing to being good…is for everyone else to be bad!