With the upcoming holiday weekend encompassing the final Saturday of the month in addition to Memorial Day, there’s a lot going on at HorseTourneys over the next four days.
The final May Saturday means that the purse guarantee of that day’s featured cash tourney increases from $30,000 to $50,000—and on Memorial Day, we’re offering a $35,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray. So the stakes are considerably higher this weekend than usual. The action commences on Friday.
There’s a brand-new offering on the Friday schedule…because a brand-new contest was just scheduled. On Memorial Day, Xpressbet will host the “Gold Cup Challenge” to help highlight Gold Cup Day at Santa Anita. The entry fee for the Xpressbet Gold Cup Challenge is $1,500, but you can win a seat for $118 in Friday’s 1-per-15 Pick & Pray. If you miss the qualifier—or don’t succeed in it—there will be a qualifier for it on Saturday or Sunday as well.
There will also be daily qualifiers this weekend to both the Spa & Surf Showdown and the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge.
The Friday Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier is a $147 Pick & Pray, and one of every 20 entrants earns a $2,500 spot in the $400,000 Guaranteed, two-day, final leg of the 2022 Tourney Triple here on August 6-7.
Play-ins to the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge require a stake of $156, and they have a winning ratio of 1-per-15 built in. Winner(s) of Friday’s Pick & Pray get a $2,000 berth in to the June 4th competition, which can be played on-track in New Jersey or at Xpressbet. Based on 200 entries, the Pick Your Prize Challenge will offer a generous 18 spots to the 2023 NHC, plus four Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge berths and cash prizes of $65,000.
Friday’s HT Tour event is our $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. The barrier to entry is $190. This is the first of what will be four HT Tour events this weekend with guaranteed purses in them totaling $120,000.
On Friday at HorsePlayers, you can qualify for the NHC…or the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge…or both!
The NHC play-in is the customary Friday $75 Pick & Pray with two seats guaranteed and a winning ratio of 1-per-143. Remember—you must be a 2022 NHC Tour member, prior to the start of the contest, in order to be eligible for an NHC package in this or any other NHC qualifier. If you’re not a member, you can become one quickly and easily at NTRA.com for a $50 membership fee.
The BCBC tourney is a $500 Low Ratio Pick & Pray. The winning ratio is 1-per-23 and at least one $10,000 entry to November’s important live-bankroll contest is guaranteed regardless of how many people sign up.
The 10 contest races for Friday are the 7th through 9th from Gulfstream; the 2nd, 4th and 5th at Woodbine; and the 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th from Santa Anita.
The Saturday featured schedule is topped by our Month-End Blowout.
It’s a 12-race HT Tour event with a $350 cost of entry as per usual. The bonus for you, as we celebrate the end of another month, is that the guaranteed purse is set at $50,000, rather than the usual $30,000. The format for it this week (or this month, depending on how you look at it) is Pick & Pray.
The Saturday Big Bucks tourney is always a Pick & Pray. It’s an “up-to-$20,000” tilt with a guaranteed pot of $10,000. Entries—at $1,150 each—are limited to 20 (unless we get a late arrival or two from last-minute Saturday feeders…in which case the pot will slightly exceed $20,000). Payouts go only to the top three finishers with the winner taking the lion’s share (70 percent) of the net pool, the runner up getting 20 percent, and the third-place finisher picking up the remaining 10 percent.
The day’s NHC qualifier takes place right here at HorseTourneys this week. It’s a “regular,” $165 Pick & Pray with two spots certain and a winning ratio of 1-per-65.
As noted/promised earlier, there will be Saturday qualifiers to the Spa & Surf Showdown ($147 to enter, 1-per-20 winning ratio) and the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge. ($156, 1-per-15). Both will be operated in Live format.
There will also be a Live-format play-in to Monday’s Xpressbet Gold Cup Challenge during the short window in which to qualify for the very-recently-scheduled contest.
At HorsePlayers, there’s a Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier on Saturday.
It’s a Live-format, $179 tourney with a winning ratio of 1-per-65. At least one $10,000 seat for November is guaranteed to be awarded.
Saturday’s race schedule is the 6th and 8th from Belmont; the 1st and 7th at Santa Anita; the 7th through 12th from Gulfstream; and races 10 and 12 at Monmouth—12 races in all. Closing time will be approximately 3:34 pm ET.
Seven more featured events come your way on Sunday.
Consider Sunday your last chance (for obvious reasons) to win a $1,500 entry into Monday’s Xpressbet Gold Cup Challenge. The parameters are the same as those for Saturday’s qualifier—a 1-per-15 winning ratio, a $118 entry fee and Live format.
Also for the third straight day, we’ll offer opportunities to qualify for the $400,000 Guaranteed Spa & Surf Showdown (August 6-7) and the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge (June 4). These two Sunday qualifiers will both be contested in Live format as well.
The day’s HT Tour event—a $20,000 Guaranteed, No Limit tourney—will be played in Live format. The entry fee is $250.
The Sunday Big Bucks game will also be hosted in Live format (as it almost always is). It’s an up-to-$20,000 tourney with an entry fee of $1,150 and a purse guarantee of at least $7,500. Again, players will make 10 plays out of 25 races. Total entries are capped at 20, and payouts go strictly to the top three finishers.
Regulars know that Sunday is the day we offer a guaranteed qualifier to The BIG One. This Memorial Day weekend, we have one on both Sunday and Monday. The BIG One is a mythical-money competition here at HorseTourneys on Saturday and Sunday, September 17-18. In The BIG One, the field will be no larger than 57, and no one will be playing more than one entry. Despite the small numbers, the prizes are large. The top 10 finishers will all receive cash and his or her choice of a seat to the NHC, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, or the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship. (At least two of the seats awarded must be for the NHC.) Sunday’s Live-format qualifier carries a $395 entry fee, and there is a maximum of 27 entries that will be accepted. Also—the winner of the qualifier gets a $500 prize in addition to the seat…and the runner up receives a $395 refund/consolation prize.
There are also back-to-back, Sunday-and-Monday qualifiers this week to the Del Mar Summer Challenge, a two-day, on-track tournament on July 30-31. Sunday’s Live-format Del Mar qualifier requires a $295 entry fee, and winners pick up a $5,000 entry.
The Sunday feature at HorsePlayers is a $500 Low Ratio qualifier to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
One $10,000 seat is guaranteed in this Pick & Pray, and the winning ratio will be 1-per-23.
On Monday, all seven of our marquee games (five here and two at HorsePlayers) will be Pick & Prays, so you can devote suitable time on Memorial Day to family, friends, the barbecue grill or whatever else you like.
The feature at HorseTourneys is a pretty significant cash game—a $35,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. It’s $395 to play, and it’s a rare Monday HT Tour event. So you can bolster your point total in addition to winning some serious money.
As covered in the Sunday summary, a second straight day of qualifying for The BIG One and the Del Mar Summer Challenge is also on the Monday agenda. The qualifier to The BIG One ($395 entry fee) is guaranteed, so maybe you can benefit from a shorter-than-normal field if our regular attempters aren’t reading this and don’t realize there’s a Monday qualifier to the “High Expectation tourney.”
The Del Mar Summer Challenge is not guaranteed in that we have to attract at least 18 entries for the tourney to go forward, but it’s still a great chance to win your way into a highly lucrative, live-bankroll contest for an outlay of $295.
And to no one’s surprise, we’ll have Pick & Pray qualifiers to the Spa & Surf Showdown and the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge on the Sunday schedule. Note that time is growing very short in which to earn a $2,000 seat to the Monmouth contest—which takes place a week from Saturday…on June 4th.
Over at HorsePlayers, you can create some happy Memorial Day memories in two different featured Pick & Prays.
One is a play-in to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge—a Low Ratio qualifier with an entry fee of $500 and a guarantee of at least one winner, regardless of participation.
The Monday NHC qualifier is a special $125 game with a winning ratio of 1-per-85. Two guaranteed seats (and likely quite a few NHC Tour points) will be on the table in this one.
Whether it’s with friends, family or just your computer/phone screen, we hope you have a happy and safe holiday weekend. If it turns out to be an exciting and profitable one…that would be even better. Here’s hoping! Good luck!