We’d call Brian Chenvert’s Saturday a year-maker, but that would be pretty unfair to him because the Minnesotan seems to have these days every couple of weeks.
No one seems more adept at stringing together multiple “price” horses in a small 10- or 12-race tourney. On Saturday, it was a three pack consisting of 22-1, 17-1 and 13-1 winners that got the job done (and how!) for Chenvert.
Tell him what he’s won, Johnny Olson!
Unfortunately, a NEW CAR was not part of Chenvert’s haul, but that’s about all he didn’t win on Saturday.
Chenvert could conceivably purchase half of a new car…or a nice used car…with the $13,582 he earned in Saturday’s HT Tour event, our $30,000 Guaranteed cash tourney (our richest game of the week).
The same score got him a $1,500 Flo-Cal Faceoff entry….
…and a $1,000 BCBC First Chance/Last Chance seat.
Darren Yarwood (3 wins, 2 places), Brett Wiener (2W, 1P) and John Kaiser (2W, 3P) will be among those opposing Chenvert this Thursday thanks to their second-, third- and fourth-place finishes, respectively.
Chenvert’s score dropped by $46 or so in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier.
But his tally of $109.60 was still good for second-place and a $10,000 BCBC seat. Leading the way here was Sean O’Malley, who had 2 wins and 2 places.
And before the day was over, Chenvert had also earned a spot in yesterday’s Santa Anita Closing Day Challenge (an event captured by Brian Herrity).
Total retail value of Chenvert’s cash and prizes on Saturday: $27,582…just another Saturday at the computer for him…or so it seems.
Actually, though, Chenvert was just one of several HorseTourneys “household names” to taste quite a bit of success this past week. Another was Michael Caposio.
Caposio’s above scorecard on Wednesday got the Temecula, Calif., car dealer $3,017 in the day’s $6,000 Guaranteed cash game (final purse: $6,705).
And it also yielded him a seat worth $1,500 to the $250,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff here on January 15-16.
Peter “Sharp Dressed Man” Dresens picked 5 Wednesday winners (all over the course of the first six races…including each of the first three).
The early salvo earned Dresens a $10,000 spot in this week’s prestigious Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
Tom Cooper, meanwhile, will have double-barrel action on Breeders’ Cup Eve.
Cooper played two entries and used the same horse in eight of the 10 contest races of our BCBC First Chance/Last Chance qualifier. That’s a very good strategy to employ when you nail five of your eight “common” horses.
Thus armed with two entries on Thursday, it will be interesting to see if Cooper spreads…or doubles down again!
By virtue of having picked more winners (4 vs. 3), Lynn Ray won our Thursday cash-game feature via tiebreaker.
Ray’s 4 wins and a place got her the nod of the judges—and the grand prize of $2,986—in Thursday’s $5,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray, which closed its doors with $6,686 in the kitty. A tip of the cap to hard-luck runner up Chuck LeFevre, who picked up $1,327 for his 3-win, 3-place effort.
“Battlin’” William Smith and Stephen Luca each won $1,000 BCBC First Chance/Last Chance entries on Thursday.
Like Ray and LeFevre in the featured cash game, Smith (5 wins, 0 places) and Luca (also 5W, 0P) both had Yono ($24.60, $10.40) in the final contest race, the 9th at Keeneland.
Randy Bauer (4 wins, 1 place) also had Yono in the nightcap.
The fast-closing 11-1 shot at Keeneland propelled Bauer from 6th place all the way up to first in Thursday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers. Stephan Gravina held second to earn a $5,000 partial BCBC entry.
As with Brian Chenvert on Saturday and Michael Caposio on Wednesday, Friday saw another player, Ronald Tang, capture a cash/seat combo.
Tang utilized 3 firsts and 4 seconds to grab the winner’s share of $7,855 in Friday’s HT Tour event, our $15,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray, which closed with a final purse of $17,456. Here’s a look at how Tang’s Friday went:
Those same selections also secured Tang a spot in January’s $250,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff.
The big horse Tang served up was Navratilova ($53.80, $20.60) in the 9th at Keeneland. Navratilova was also central to the Friday successes of Shilo Merwitz and Mike Ferrozzo in the $75 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.
Merwitz (3 wins, 1 place) and Ferrozzo (3W, 1P as well) also both added Star Chamber ($31.50, $16.00) in the 6th at Keeneland to their roster of collections.
David Ritchie (1 win, 3 places), Linda Rodriguez (2W, 2P) and Matt Bernier (3W, 2P) were the three winners of $10,000 seats in Friday’s BCBC Low Ratio qualifier.
Ritchie and Rodriguez had Navratilova as their primary contributor. Bernier’s top returner was Star Chamber on his way to the BCBC.
Back here at HorseTourneys, there were three winners of $1,000 BCBC First Chance/Last Chance entries on Friday.
Congratulations (and good luck on Thursday) to Benjamin Dayton (2 wins, 2 places), Joe Rodgers (5W, 1P) and Alan Bourke (4W, 2P). All three picked Star Chamber, while Dayton also had Navratilova.
Taking a look at Saturday featured events not won by Brian Chenvert…Vic Stauffer (2 firsts, 1 second) prevailed by one thin dime in Saturday’s $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks Pick & Pray.
Stauffer collected $9,261 from a total final pot of $13,230. In another “tough beat” from the week just past, Runner up Eric Kurzhal had the 5-1 winner of the concluding tourney race at Woodbine, but the final returns from that payoff left him just shy of the top, and he had to settle for second money of $2,646.
Robert McIntyre and Stephen Wolfson each put up impressive scores to bring home a 2022 NHC seat on Saturday.
McIntyre (3 wins, 1 place) and Wolfson (4W, 2P) each selected No Shirt No Shoes ($42.20, $14.60) in the 6th at Keeneland. That winner was their main springboard to success.
The $80 mark was the hurdle to clear in Saturday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Super Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers.
Thomas Murphy (2 wins, 0 places), Rocky Hardy (2W, 3P) and Kevin Willett (2W, 3P) all managed to do so, and so all three will be strapped in for some high stakes action on Friday and Saturday. Willett got up late for that final berth with a $5.60 place collection in the last contest race.
Neither Paul Slath…
…nor Gene Cahalan…
…managed to go 4-for-4 while winning the weekend $15 Pick 4 Jackpot tourneys. (Though Cahalan came close, missing just the 9-2 winner of Sunday’s Leg 3.) That means that the next Pick 4 Jackpot tourney will have a carryover of $634.
One of the big winners on Sunday was Ken Seeman, champion of the Sept. 19-20 The BIG One here at HorseTourneys.
Seeman could have been forgiven if he sat back a bit and rested on his laurels after winning $80,000 six weeks ago in “The High Expectation Tourney.” As it turned out, he was just getting started.
Two weeks ago, Seeman won a $1,500 Flo-Cal Faceoff entry. Last week he won $5,699 in our Sunday Big Bucks tourney. What did he do yesterday? Both!
And when we say he did both, we mean exactly that—because his Big Bucks grand prize yesterday was exactly the same as it was last week. Now THAT’S consistency!
Another frequent winner of late has been Jorge Cruz-Aedo, the current leader in the HT Tour standings. Last week, he won two tourneys, and with all of his recent successes, it’s somewhat hard to believe that “J. Crew” had yet to qualify for the 2022 NHC. After Sunday, however, that was no longer the case.
The Texan had the first three winners en route to a 5-win, 1-place day that got him the top spot in Sunday’s NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers that was restricted to those yet to earn a 2022 berth. If Brian Chenvert, Ken Seeman and Cruz-Aedo were to get in the same room right now, the place might spontaneously combust.
With the Breeders’ Cup less than a week away, there were three BCBC qualifiers at HorsePlayers on Sunday. Oddly enough, the highest score of the three—and the highest featured-tourney score of the entire day—came in the 39-entry, $1,000 BCBC Super Low Ratio game.
That’s Paul Cush who led the way with a ratio-defying total of $137. Here’s a look at his scoresheet:
This was the second-straight week that a BCBC Super Low Ratio qualifier provided the day’s highest score. Perhaps we (read: I) shouldn’t be surprised, though, given the players that these high-end, $1,000 games attract. Swim at your own peril!
Getting back to Sunday’s Super Low Ratio game, Vic Stauffer (winner of the Saturday Big Bucks game by that 10-cent margin) finished second to get himself a BCBC spot and Brian Chenvert got the other available entry. Did we mention that Chenvert is doing really, really well these days?
Actually there were even enough entries for the fourth-place finisher to receive a $5,000 partial entry, It went to Robert Graham.
Bobby Marks (4 wins, 5 places) and Pete Acocella (2W, 4P) were the two big winners in Sunday’s $500 Low Ratio BCBC qualifier at HorsePlayers.
They both had Frosted Over ($19.40, $7.40) in the 8th at Woodbine.
Joseph Rumfolo had Rain ($29.80, $16.50) in the 9th at Gulfstream among his 5 Sunday winners (and one Sunday place).
That got Rumfolo the $10,000 seat in Sunday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers. Meanwhile, Rocky Hardy reported home second to pick up a $5,000 partial entry.
Another player praying for Rain was David Eckels.
Rain was one of his two winners in Sunday’s HT Tour event, our $20,000 Guaranteed cash tourney. The winner’s share for Eckels was an even $9,000.
Lastly, there were four winners of $1,000 entries in Sunday’s BCBC First Chance/Last Chance play-in.
Congratulations to Wendy Long (4 wins, 1 place), George Henning (5W, 2P), Jeffrey Amster (4W, 1P) and Michael Guadagno (4W, 0P). They’ll all be in the starting gate this Thursday.
So can you…because we’ll continue to offer BCBC and BCBC First Chance/Last Chance qualifiers over the next few days. Best of luck to you in those—and good luck in your handicapping this week as you start ferreting out those elusive, but often lucrative, Breeders’ Cup winners. We’ll be back on Thursday to preview our extensive lineup of single-day and two-day Breeders’ Cup tourneys. In the meantime, thanks to all of you for what was a pretty exciting “week before the big week.”