Questions occasionally arise regarding family members, spouses, or friends participating in the same tournament. Because HorseTourneys takes contest integrity seriously, we believe it is important to explain how these situations are evaluated.

We understand why players are concerned about related participants competing in the same contest. Integrity is important, and no player wants to feel that someone else has an unfair advantage.

First, it is important to distinguish between participation and leverage.

In a typical mythical tournament, participants are selecting horses across 10-12 races. Even using conservative assumptions, the number of possible outcome combinations runs into the hundreds of millions or billions.

For example, consider a mythical tournament with 10 races.

If each race contains only 8 betting interests, there are more than one billion possible winner combinations.

Two coordinated entries can cover exactly two of those possible paths. Even ten coordinated entries cover only ten.

As a result, a small number of coordinated entries simply does not create meaningful leverage over the tournament. This distinction is important.

A participant entering under a spouse’s name is not creating a new type of advantage. They are simply adding another entry to the contest, just as any other player could do if additional entries were permitted.

HorseTourneys therefore focuses on meaningful leverage rather than relationships.

We monitor for obvious coordination, entry matrixing, and situations involving larger groups of related participants. These are the circumstances that could potentially create a material competitive advantage and are addressed under our rules.

However, participation by a pair of related individuals, standing alone, does not create a meaningful threat to tournament integrity. In nearly twenty years of HorseTourneys operation, we have never identified a situation involving a family pair that materially affected a tournament outcome through coordinated play.

Our goal is simple: maintain a fair and competitive environment while focusing enforcement on conduct that can realistically impact contest results.

Tom Lenberg hit a grand slam on Sunday, but he wasn’t playing for the Rockies or the Athletics in Las Vegas Ballpark, where the two teams slugged it out to a 23-9 final score in the heat and elevation of the Nevada desert. Rather, Lenberg’s Sunday grand slam came in a much more difficult environment to achieve such a feat—right here at HorseTourneys.

Eldon Stivers woke up on Saturday morning in a panic. 

After Friday’s Day 1 of the $319,113 New York New York Challenge, Stivers was in 13th place—$61.92 behind leader Tory Cameron. Stivers—a 62-year-old retired mechanic who resides in Nash, Tex., close to Texarkana—was excited. 

A fine first day followed up by a significantly better Day 2 proved the pathway to victory for Eldon Stivers in the second annual New York New York Challenge on June 5-6 at HorseTourneys. The Nash, Tex., resident earned $119,545 for the victory.

The second annual New York New York Challenge is now just four days away. On Sunday, Jayson “Radio City” Rockett ensured that he’ll be part of the $200,000 Guaranteed event that requires players to make full-card, Pick & Pray selections for the Friday and Saturday of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival (to be held one final time this year at Saratoga).

Cash was king for Kenneth Arnerich over Memorial Day Weekend—or on Saturday, to be precise.

There are so many great tournaments on the annual calendar. In less than a month, one of the most popular will be held—the Monmouth Pick Your Prize Challenge. Of course, the granddaddy of them all is the NHC. And we at HorseTourneys are particularly proud of the upcoming, all-Pick & Pray New York New York Challenge here over Belmont Stakes weekend.

Stephen Thompson didn’t finish first in any featured tourneys last week. However, the Lebanon, Pa., funeral home owner and supervisor still managed to bring home seats to three important contests—and he did so on three different days.

It was another good weekend around here for NHC Hall of Famers. Two of them—Brett Wiener and 2016 NHC Tour champ Cheryl McIntyre—did a whole lot of winning here on Friday and Saturday.

NHC champions…NHC Hall of Famers…HorseTourneys “major” winners…you’ll find all of them on the leaderboards in any given week here—and they certainly had plenty of great moments here last week. The player who outdid them all, however, was Jose Giron.