We have 26 featured tourneys on the docket this coming weekend. That’s an unofficial record here at HorseTourneys/HorsePlayers. Included in the robust slate are first-chance qualifiers to the NHC Last Chance Tournament at Bally’s, the Tampa Bay Downs Handicapping Contest in January, this month’s Santa Anita Opening Day Challenge, next month’s NTRA/Santa Anita NHC Super Qualifier and the January 26 Sam Houston NHC Qualifier.
When you play in — or report on — enough contests, it’s easy to overlook how much a victory might mean to someone…especially when it’s not us doing the winning.
If you spent time with family and managed to travel to and fro safely despite some bad weather around the country, you had a pretty successful Thanksgiving weekend. If, at the same time, you managed to prosper in a handicapping contest, then you had an even more memorable weekend. Plenty of people did just that at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers, led by G.T. Nixon.
For many, Thanksgiving is their favorite holiday of the year. Undoubtedly, millions of Americans give Turkey Day the nod over Christmas because on Thanksgiving, unlike December 25th, HorseTourneys is open. We carry on that hallowed tradition Thursday, which serves as the kickoff to a four-day harvest of tourneys.
NOTICE FROM MANAGEMENT: Our debut of Live Video hit a snafu–live traffic produced a technical issue that negatively impacts site performance. We are endeavoring to solve this problem to bring Live Video back to you as soon a possible. This may take a few days to rectify. We apologize for the issue and thank you for your patience. -McKay
HorseTourneys is pleased to announce that live video streaming will be available at HorseTourneys starting on Wednesday, November 27. HorsePlayers will follow likely the next week.
This blog is sent out annually as a reminder of some tweaks we here at HorseTourneys employ to try and mitigate the effects of winter weather on scheduling. For beginners and veteran tourney players alike, it’s always a good idea for a quick refresher:
As we roll into the winter months, it’s a good idea that we explain our approach to scheduling, which we tweak this time of year. We’ve employed this approach every year, and it just bears a quick reminder every November or so as chilly temperatures descend across the land.
As is stated in our Support FAQ section, the race schedule for multi-track tournaments–by which we mean our Featured schedules on Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays–are traditionally posted 48-hours in advance of the date of the tournament. So for instance, the race schedule for the Featured Saturday tournaments is typically posted on Thursday afternoon.
Snow, ice and high winds will no doubt descend on some of the racetracks we like to use, be it Aqueduct in New York, Turfway in Kentucky or even some of our friends as far south as Louisiana. We hate cancellations as much as you do and always do our best to avoid them.
Therefore, essentially through March, we’ll post race schedules a day later – or approximately 24 hours prior to the contest. So a race schedule for a Featured Saturday will now be posted on Friday afternoon.
We realize that players like to have access to races as far in advance as possible, but for us, these extra 24-hours are often critical. During these months, weather can change dramatically in a 24-hour span. Having the extra time to survey what we think might happen makes it more likely that we’ll avoid making scheduling mistakes that could result in cancellations. This approach has proven prudent, as it’s helped save more than an handful of schedules that would otherwise have been scrapped.
Generally speaking, we will also avoid using cold-weather tracks in Quick Early Bird schedules whenever an alternative with more predictable weather is available, especially on the weekends. It is essential that Quick Early Bird schedules run on Saturdays and Sundays, since those schedules include so many feeders to the days’ Featured events. So for instance, you’ll be far more likely to see Tampa included in a QEB schedule than Aqueduct–even though we know Aqueduct is a more popular circuit.
Lastly, since many people ask us about replacing races with “alternate” races in the event of cancellations, we feel it’s helpful to explain how we approach scenarios where races are indeed cancelled:
Here at HorseTourneys, Eric Wing and I take scheduling very, very seriously. You spend a ton of time preparing, and we feel the above approach is the best to ensuring your play experiences as few inconveniences as possible.
We hope this provides some insight – email us at support@horsetourneys.com with any questions. Stay warm!
I’m back in the saddle after needing to take some time off to attend to a personal matter. It’s really good to be back. HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers has a total of 21 featured tourneys scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Most of them are Pick & Prays. Let’s take a look.
The Breeders’ Cup may be in our rear-view mirrors, but there’s a lot of open road in front of us. It’s a highway filled with many attractions, both of the cash and qualifying varieties. Monday is Veterans Day, so that means a four-day weekend and perhaps extra traffic on the roads and at HorseTourneys—but at HorseTourneys, extra traffic is always a good thing. Let’s take a spin through the upcoming four days.
It may not have been a Breeders’ Cup loaded with star power, but races were competitive affairs. Betting records were set on the event, and action was similarly heavy here at HorseTourneys, where several high-end cash games and qualifiers left many of our players with a weekend to remember—especially Mike Martin.
