The crummy weather in Baltimore on Preakness Day seemed to do a couple of things. It created a surface at Pimlico that generated a lot of short-priced winners—and the uncertainty of slop and boggy turf contributed to a reduced field in our Preakness Day $100,000 Guaranteed tourney. But HorseTourneys’ misfortune meant good fortune for contest players…in the form of a positive-expectation contest run at a 1.3% overlay to participants.
What promises to be the richest game in HorseTourneys history—a Preakness-Day 14-race, live-format up-to-$150,000 tourney—leads a parade of 14 featured events during the upcoming Friday-Saturday-Sunday weekend.
The notion that tournaments reward those who are great, not good, is already baked into contest play with top prizes reserved for those who finish only at or near the top. Many players take this fundamental concept to the next level by playing multiple tournaments in a single day. Three of them—Adam Thoutt, Anthony Trezza and Ken Seeman—profited handsomely from that practice this past weekend.
Next weekend, Pimlico officials will be telling you to “Get your Preak on.” This weekend, we tell you to “Get your Pre-Preak on” with several valuable tourneys that will bridge the gap between Derby and Preakness and then some.
How great is Bob Baffert? Two of the most exciting things I’ve seen in racing over the past 30 years are American Pharoah’s 2015 Triple Crown after 37 years of waiting and Justify’s shattering of the Apollo Curse last Saturday. I don’t mean to equate the two achievements—American Pharoah’s is obviously far greater—but I’ve always felt extra excitement at events that end historic droughts…no matter what the sport.
It’s a sinking feeling when a bomb wins a contest race, and you don’t have it. There were no such feelings in featured tourney action at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers this weekend—because no bombs won!
It’s hardly your typical featured schedule at HorseTourneys this weekend. We’ll have plenty of action on Saturday—Derby Day—but since we don’t have the ability to use Churchill Downs races in our tourneys, and since the Derby card is (understandably) what the majority of people will be following on Saturday, we will be offering our top featured events only on Friday and (primarily) Sunday this week so that no one misses out on important tourneys they would otherwise want to play.
A couple of weeks ago a player won an NHC seat in one of those gigantic free qualifiers by picking the number 5 horse in each race. Occasionally, you’ll see someone actually put up money for a tourney and then just pick the same number in every race.
On a weekend with predominantly live-format featured tourneys, there were no double winners. So the “wealth” was very nicely spread during a three-day period that began with a newly-enriched Friday contest.
Saratoga and Del Mar. To many horseplayers, the two tracks go hand-in-hand due to their similar positions on the racing calendar. They also go hand in hand with respect to this weekend’s featured schedule at HorseTourneys because they take important new positions on our bill of fare.
