If you’re a 2022 NHC Tour member, you need to circle Sunday on your calendar. That’s the day of this year’s final free NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. It’s a Pick & Pray with five seats guaranteed.
Actually, most of this weekend’s featured tourneys are Pick & Prays—including the six of the seven offered on Friday.
Friday’s HT Tour event is our $15,000 Guaranteed No Limit Pick & Pray. An entry fee of $190 gets you a seat at the virtual table.
This is the final weekend of qualifying for the Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge and the on-track-only Laurel Champions tournament—both of which take place on October 15. The Keeneland play-in, a Pick & Pray, costs $206 to play, and one of every 20 entrants will earn a $3,500 entry for the on-track/Xpressbet contest.
The Laurel Champions Pick & Pray requires a financial commitment of $59, and one in 10 gets a $500 berth.
We’ll also host a qualifier a day for the $250,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff here on January 14-15.
All three Flo-Cal Faceoff play-ins this weekend will be Pick & Prays. You can lock down a $1,500 seat to the first leg of the 2023 Tourney Triple if you win Friday’s $118 qualifier, which has a winning ratio of 1-per-15.
At HorsePlayers on Friday, we host Pick & Pray qualifiers for the NHC and the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
Friday’s NHC tourney is a $75 Pick & Pray with two seats guaranteed and a winning ratio of 1-per-143. Entries are limited to three per person. 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 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge game is a $500 Low Ratio Pick & Pray. The winning ratio is 1-per-23, and at least one $10,000 entry is guaranteed regardless of participation.
The Friday 10-race schedule is the 7th and 9th from “Belmont at Aqueduct”; the 7th through 10th on the opening day card at Keeneland; the 7th and 8th from Woodbine; and 5th and 6th at Santa Anita. Three of the four Keeneland races are graded stakes. Not super unusual for Keeneland…but unusual for us on a Friday!
Saturday is the day of our richest tourney of the week.
It’s our $30,000 Guaranteed Pick & Pray. It’s $350 to compete in this one, which serves as the day’s HT Tour event.
Most of our Saturday (and Sunday) features will be Pick & Prays, including our previously-promised qualifiers for the Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge, the Laurel Champions tournament; and the $250,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff.
On Saturday (and again on Sunday), there will be a play-in for the $50,000 Guaranteed Exacta Extravaganza. Exacta Extravaganza qualifiers are run in Live, Exacta format (not as a Pick & Pray). In Exacta-format games, players make a mythical, three-horse exacta box selection in each contest race, and there are no price caps in effect. (You get the full payoff credited to your score if you hit a big one.) Friday’s Extravaganza qualifier carries an $89 entry fee, and winners (1-per-10) pick up a $750 seat for the two-day, exotic tourney here on December 3-4.
The Saturday $10,000 Guaranteed Big Bucks game is always run as a Pick & Pray It’s an “up-to-$20,000” test with an entry fee of $1,150—and there is a limit of 20 entries that will be accepted. Payouts go only to the top three finishers with the winner taking the biggest share (70 percent) of the net pool, the runner up getting 20 percent, and the third-place finisher picking up the remaining 10 percent.
Two more marquee games come your way on Saturday at HorsePlayers. One is a Pick & Pray, the other will be a Live-format offering.
The “set-it-and-forget-it” offering is a $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier with one $10,000 BCBC seat guaranteed. The winning ratio is 1-per-65.
There will also be a $210 NHC qualifier with 2 seats guaranteed. The winning ratio works out to 1-per-50, and this one will be operated in Live format.
Saturday’s 12 contest races are the 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th from Keeneland; the 1st and 3rd at Santa Anita; the 8th through 10th from “Belmont at Aqueduct”; and races 7 through 9 at Woodbine. Closing time will be approximately 3:38 pm ET, and eight of the 12 races (including all of the Keeneland and Woodbine offerings) will be graded stakes.
We close the weekend out with eight more featured tourneys.
We’ve already let slip what four of them are—a Live-Exacta format qualifier to the Exacta Extravaganza and Pick & Pray play-ins pegged to the Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge, the Flo-Cal Faceoff, the and the Laurel Champions tournament.
Sunday’s HT Tour battle is our $20,000 Guaranteed, No Limit game. You can play this Pick & Pray upon presentation of $250.
Sunday’s Big Bucks game is always run in Live format. It’s an up-to-$20,000 tourney with a purse guaranteed to be no lower than $7,000. Total entries will again be limited to 20 (at $1,150 per entry), and payouts go just to the top three finishers.
There are co-features on Sunday at HorsePlayers—including the free NHC 5-seater that we mentioned at the top.
Again, you must be a paid-up 2022 NHC member in order to play and win the NHC Pick & Pray. If you’re not, you can remedy the situation by going to NTRA.com and purchasing a membership.
The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier is a $500 Low-Ratio Pick & Pray. The winning ratio is 1-per-23, and at least one player will leave with a $10,000 BCBC entry for next month.
Enjoy the opening weekend action at Keeneland and all of the Breeders’ Cup preps around the county—and good luck in all of your contest endeavors here at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers.