It’s a message that always bears repeating to a contest player. Your fortunes can change in an instant.

The latest “Exhibit A” of this came in Sunday’s NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

The two seats went to Christopher Olsson (4 wins, 1 place) and Ralph Magnetti (3W, 1P). That’s not really the story, though.

Check out Olsson’s scorecard. He had back-to-back cap horses with the prophetically-named Wegonahavagoodtime ($53.00, $28.20) in the 2nd at Los Alamitos and In My Opinion ($52.80, $21.80) in race 6 at Laurel.

A closer review of the charts reveals that these races went off six minutes apart—2:52 pm ET at Los Al and 2:58 pm ET back East at Laurel. So six minutes changed Olsson’s gambling year. 

Sometimes we look to the heavens and hope that “today will be our day”. Maybe we’ve been greedy. Perhaps we should just be asking for a good 10 minutes. Sometimes that’s all it takes—and that’s a good thing to remember…especially when we are down and starting to feel sorry for ourselves.

Jeff VanDrie had a couple of bombs of his own when the featured tourney week began on Wednesday.

They weren’t spaced as close together as Olsson’s dynamic duo, but VanDrie had Zakaria ($104.80, $36.20) in the 7th at Mahoning Valley, and then his internal GPS took him to Kingsville ($41.20, $12.60) in race 10 at Parx. These two winners plus a place collection put VanDrie right in the middle of the global public square and got him a $1,500 entry for the $250,000 Gtd. Flo-Cal Faceoff here on January 20-21.

Zakaria wasn’t speaking to Jayson “Radio City” Rockett, but Rockett did come up with Kingsville.

The Bensalem 19-1 shot was one of 3 winners and 3 runners up that Rockett fired off en route to a $2,768 payday in Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash game, which finished up with a total purse of $6,152.

Blake Courtney also had Kingsville. As a matter of fact, that was his only Wednesday winner.

Courtney was no one-trick pony, though. In addition to Kingsville, he stockpiled seven (count ‘em, seven) place collections, and that got the job done for him by a whopping $52.80 in Wednesday’s Pick & Pray qualifier to the Santa Anita Opening Day Challenge a week from tomorrow.

Thursday featured a HorseTourneys rarity—a contest that finished in a tie that couldn’t be broken.

Matthew Bickey and Dave “Tiger” Williams each had the same 2 winners, no places and no shows—and that deadlock came about because they had the same exact 10 selections. We see this occasionally in single-track games when people may be leaning on the same public handicapper, but not very often in multi-track games. In any event, Bickey and Williams each earned $2,351 (half of the combined first-and second-place prizes) in this $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray that closed with a pot of $7,465. 

Like Blake Courtney on Wednesday, Ken Jordan won on Thursday with just one horse “on top”.

Jordan’s victor was Dash of Fire ($26.20, $10.20) in the 7th at Mahoning Valley. To that, he added a pair of place payouts, and that got Jordan home for the $1,500 seat in Thursday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier.

Randy Bauer did all of his Thursday damage within the first six contest races.

Bauer compiled 3 firsts and 2 seconds in that span to emerge victorious in Thursday’s special $125 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. His big horse was Calycanthus ($32.40, $14.80) in the 8th at Gulfstream.

Friday offered the first of three HT Tour events during the week. This one was taken by R. Paul Capone (4 firsts, 2 seconds).

Capone’s biggest heist was Clover Street ($26.80, $8.50) in the 8th at Aqueduct. When the smoke cleared, Capone got away with $8,453 in Friday’s $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which wound up paying out a total of $18,786.

Jim Colbert reported home first in Friday’s Santa Anita Opening Day Challenge play-in.

Colbert’s three winners came consecutively, and they included Bodacious Bren ($32.00, $9.80) in the 8th race at Gulfstream.

Ronald de la Gardelle (3 wins, 0 places) and Ernest “Say” Hey Jr. (3W, 2P) got the inexpensive NHC seats in Friday’s $75 qualifier at HorsePlayers. 

One of the three winners for de la Gardelle was cap horse Prince of Joy ($129.50, $53.50) in the 5th at the Big A. Finishing second was the already-double-qualified Jeff Bussan. That left the other seat to Hey, whose three victors returned $12.80, $32.00 and $26.80 in the win hole.

Bussan may have just been (successfully) hunting for NHC Tour points in that $75 qualifier, but he was playing for keeps in Friday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff play-in.

Stephen Franklin led the way with 4 wins and 2 places. Also earning $1,500 Faceoff entries were Bussan (4W, 1P) and Matthew “Hey” Abbott (2W, 3P). All three had both Bodacious Ben and Clover Street.

Jeff Bussan kept the good times rolling on Saturday by picking up yet another Flo-Cal Faceoff seat.

This time, Bussan racked up 6 wins and a place. The other seat winner here was runner up Rick Vasquez (4W, 2P). They each had Disarmed ($20.00, $8.90) in race 7 at Aqueduct—and they both finished fast too. Bussan came up with the final two contest-race winners to get up. Vasquez secured his spot in the $250,000 Guaranteed two-day competition by collecting with the final two runners up.

The star of the day on Saturday was Craig “Home Sweet” Hom.

Hom connected on 2 winners and 6 second-place finishers to take Saturday’s HT Tour event, our Live-format, $25,000 Guaranteed cash game, which was ultimately worth a total of $28,028. Hom’s heavy lifter was Kaymus ($25.40, $9.90) en route to the $12,612 grand prize.

As mentioned, that was a Live-format game…but Hom used the exact same picks in Saturday’s $7,000 Gtd. Big Bucks Pick & Pray.

There was a healthy turnout of 16 in this one, which meant a nice prize pool of $16,284, and another $11,398 heading back to the “Hom office”. Hom’s total haul for sweeping the Saturday cash games amounted to $24,010.

Like Craig Hom, Joshua Taarud (5 firsts, 1 second) also “kaym” up with Kaymus.

Taarud was the top finisher in Saturday’s qualifier to the December 26 Santa Anita Opening Day Challenge.

Ted “Forbidden” Apple also had Kaymus—but he needed 7-2 winner Thunderheart in the contest finale, the 5th at Los Alamitos to get up for his Saturday victory.

That victory carried a hefty prize—a $6,500 package for the January 27th Pegasus World Cup Betting Challenge.

Saturday’s highest score came in the 26-player qualifier for the Houston Racing Festival Handicapping Contest on January 27th at Sam Houston.

The poster of that gaudy score was Vance “Great” Normand, who counted both of the big Aqueduct winners, Disarmed and Kaymus, among his 4 firsts and 2 seconds.

(Side note: Great Normand was the upset winner of the 1990 Meadowlands Cup at odds of 181-1. Piloted by Carlos Lopez and conditioned by Jorge Romero, Great Normand defeated a field that included Summer Squall, Opening Verse and Beau Genius.)

Another player who smoked out both Disarmed and Kaymus on Saturday was David Mullin over at HorsePlayers.

Mullin (5 wins, 1 place) defeated 76 others in Saturday’s $210 NHC qualifier. Finishing second and also grabbing a 2024 seat was Steven Gruettner (5W, 1P), who hit the last two races to get up for the second and final berth.

Attracting just 47 entries, Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge went off at an overlay to players.

The beneficiary of the low turnout was Dr. Ronald Tang, who whiffed on the first five contest races, but put up 4 winners and 1 runner up over the final seven to bag the $10,000 seat.

Another overlaid game was Sunday’s $7,000 Gtd. Big Bucks tourney.

Just six showed up for this one, creating a 1.4% overlay. In the end, it was Howard Welsh who took advantage of the situation—but just barely. Welsh (2 winners) edged Adam Lewis by just 10 cents. Welsh got the $4,900 up-top money, while Lewis had to settle for $1,400. No one in the field of six managed to turn a flat-bet profit over the 12 contest races.

Scores in Sunday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier were considerably higher. In fact, all three seat winners eclipsed the $100 mark (and created a decent-sized gap back to 4th place).

Congratulations to Brett Wiener (3 double-digit winners, 0 places, 1 missed pick), Evan Trommer (4W, 3P, 0 MP) and Alexa Zepp (3W, 5P, 0 MP).

Runner up Trommer took a backseat to no one in Sunday’s Santa Anita Opening Day Challenge qualifier.

Trommer (4 wins, 5 places) used similar but different picks here. He and Kevin Lux (4W, 4P) will square off against each other again on December 26th.

Mike Lazarus had a nice Sunday.

Lazarus’s five winners were all of the double-digit variety, including Wegonahavagoodtime ($53.00, $28.20) in the 2nd at Los Alamitos. His total came to $155.90—good for first place and $10,828 in Sunday’s HT Tour game, our $20,000 Guaranteed tourney, which closed with a final purse of $24,062.

Wegonahavagoodtime was also one of 5 Sunday winners for Jim Meeks.

The 2015 Horse Players World Series champion won the $10,000 seat in Sunday’s Low Ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers.

The field for the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship got a little bit tougher on Sunday.

That’s because the winner of that day’s qualifier to it was NHC Hall of Famer Paul Shurman, who recorded 4 firsts and 2 seconds. All four of his winners paid double-digits—topped by Brown Don’t Stop ($21.40, $7.50) in the 7th at Aqueduct.

We’ll have featured tourneys on Wednesday through Sunday of the upcoming week, though the slate figures to be a bit limited on Sunday, Christmas Eve, with just Gulfstream and Tampa Bay Downs running. At any rate, we’ll be back in this space on Tuesday, the 26th, to recap them all. Until then, Happy Holidays and good luck!