Players really came out to play last week—almost as if the year was about to end. There were six days of featured events, and plenty of multiple winners. Some of them had predictably high scores…and some didn’t.

Joe “Tex” Scanio didn’t let a score of $52.40 ruin his fun on the final Wednesday of 2023. His top winner paid $10.00, but Scanio did accumulate five bingos on the day plus a runner up—and now he can get his 10-gallon hat out of mothballs for the January 27th Houston Racing Festival Handicapping Contest at Sam Houston. 

The same selections also earned Scanio a $1,500 Flo-Cal Faceoff entry.

Joining him at the $250,000 Guaranteed contest here on Jan. 20-21 will be qualifier winner Edward Enborg (4 wins, 3 places), Mike Gillum (4W, 2P) and 4th-place finisher Daniel Edwards (2W, 2P).

Steven Meier only picked one Wednesday winner, but it was a doozy.

Meier hit Chain Reaction ($44.20, $16.60) in the 7th at Parx and added two place collections to finish with the day’s highest score ($77.60) in Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash game, which finished up with a purse of $7,119. Meier’s share of that was $3,203.

After the first half of Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, Matthew Bickey’s score was a nice round number, but he heated up in a big way during the final five races.

Bickey picked three winners, including Bornforgreatness ($41.40, $20.00) in the contest finale (Aqueduct race 8) to finish with a total of $148.80 and pocket $3,950 in a game that ultimately paid out a total of $8,778.

Bickey has the potential to realize even greater riches thanks to his performance three days later.

Four winners and one place got Bickey the top spot in the New Year’s Eve Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier. Among those also securing $1,500 seats on the final day of the year was 2019 NHC Tour champ David Snyder (4W, 1P), who won the Flo-Cal Faceoff in 2022 and will bid to become the event’s first two-time winner. Jeff Higgins (2W, 0P) Gary Gristick (4W, 2P) and Vineet “Please Don’t Squeeze the” Sharma (3W, 0P) also got Flo-Cal berths for finished 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively.

Another past NHC Tour winner, defending champion Jay Johns, earned his way into the Flo-Cal Faceoff last week.

Johns (2 wins, 3 places) and Gary Machiz (2W, 1P) got the $1,500 seats in Thursday’s play-in. They both smoked out Trikari ($55.60, $21.60) in the 9th at Gulfstream.

On Friday, Jacob Warden’s 2 firsts and 4 seconds were highlighted by Guntown ($18.40, $8.80) in race 7 at the Big A.

Warden got the $8,304 top prize in Friday’s $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, an HT Tour event, which closed with a pot of $18,453.

Edward Reidy (5 winners, all in the first 6 races, 0 places), David Decauwer (5W, 1P) and Michael Karalis (4W, 1P) all had Guntown.

They were the three who eclipsed the $80 mark and the three to earn $1,500 entries in Friday’s qualifier to the Flo-Cal Faceoff.

The only three players on Friday to crack triple digits did so in the day’s $75 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. 

NHC Hall of Famer Trey Stiles led the way with $111.80, but he is already double-qualified and was playing for NHC Tour points. The two March 2024 seats went to Tony Brice (4 wins, 2 places) and Rich Averill (5W, 1P). Both of Brice’s place collections played like winners, as they returned $22.00 and $13.20. Averill, meanwhile, shot out of the gate like R Harper Rose, firing off winners in the each of the first 5 races…and all five paid double-digits. 

The Saturday star was Hubert Gaffney.

Five winners—topped by Cannon’s Roar ($36.00, $12.40) in the 9th at Tampa—plus two place collections got Gaffney the top prize in Saturday’s HT Tour event, our Live-format $25,000 Guaranteed cash tourney. Gaffney bagged $14,137 from what was a final purse of $31,416.

Saturday’s NHC qualifier was a Pick & Pray, and Gaffney had one fewer winner in that game—but it didn’t cost him.

Gaffney’s slightly lower score of $123.30 here still prevailed by plenty. George Turner (2 firsts, 1 second) got the other NHC seat, and it was a wild ride on his way to that runner-up spot. He did all of his scoring in the final five races, including having Main Event ($25.00, $11.80) in the final contest race, the 11th at Gulfstream. That last winner got Turner up into second place by just 10 cents over a hard-luck Dave Cichy. 

Saturday’s top score with a tally of $163.60 was Bill Starkey—and he accomplished that despite failing to get one of his 12 picks in.

Maybe Starkey was just trying to give his opponents a sporting chance. From the 11 plays that he did manage to enter, Starkey racked up 5 double-digit winners, and he came away with the $10,000 seat in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers. 

Eddie Inman also spotted his rivals an advantage on Saturday—by whiffing on the first 5 contest races.

That didn’t stop Inman from emerging victorious in Saturday’s Houston Racing Festival Handicapping Contest qualifier. Inman finished with 2 winners—one of them being 17-1 Cannon’s Roar—and 1 runner up.

R. Paul Capone was also a Cannon’s Roar backer.

The Tampa 17-1 shot was one of 4 Saturday winners for Capone in Saturday’s $7,000 Gtd, Big Bucks Pick & Pray, which had a final prize pool of $10,177. Capone’s winner’s share came to $7,124.

Four players added their names to the guest list on Saturday for the $250,000 Gtd. Flo-Cal Faceoff.

Congratulations to William Holobowski (4 wins, 3 places), 2005 NHC Champ Jamie Michelson (4W, 2P), Patrick Kennedy (3W, 1P) and Dustin Korth (2W, 2P).

Mike Thomas nailed four consecutive contest races in mid-tourney.

In all, Thomas finished with 5 wins and 1 place—good for first place and a $6,500 package in Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship qualifier. There were enough entries in this one to award a second Pegasus package, and that one went to Dr. Ronald Tang (2W, 2P). Thomas and Tang both tabbed “Titan of the Tapeta” Fly the W ($30.40, $15.00) in the 9th at Gulfstream.

Apparently buoyed by his Saturday success, Ron Tang decided to shoot for another Pegasus entry on Sunday.

This time, Tang flew the W thanks to 3 wins and a place. His big horse was Win or Cellar ($54.80, $21.00) in the 8th at Tampa. Suffice it to say that Tang will have plenty of action on January 27th.

The final HT Tour competition of 2023 went to Geoffrey Schutt (3 wins, 1 place).

Schutt connected in the final contest race with Heartfullofstars ($33.00, $8.60) in the 6th at Santa Anita and that propelled him to an end-of-year payday of $11,320 in a $20,000 Guaranteed cash tourney that ultimately was worth a total of $25,156.

We mentioned earlier that Vineet Sharma was one of those who earned a Flo-Cal Faceoff seat on Sunday for finishing behind Matthew Bickey. Well…Sharma’s same score of $100.00 on the nose allowed him to rule the roost in Sunday’s $7,000 Gtd. Big Bucks game, which finished with a purse of $8,142.

Sharma’s three double-digit winners included Tampa race 7 bomb Empire Girl ($105.20, $36.00). The New Year’s Eve victory for Sharma was worth $5,699.

Among his 3 firsts and 1 second, Ilan Cuellar had 26-1 Win or Cellar in the 8th at Tampa and 15-1 Heartfullofstars at the end.

Cuellar used Heartfullofstars in this Live-format Houston Racing Festival Handicapping Contest qualifier even though he was nursing a slim $6.90 lead going into that final race. The courage of his convictions (or the fact that he was busy doing something else at the time on New Year’s Eve) certainly paid off for Cuellar, who finished $48.50 to the good.

Over at HorsePlayers, Rocco Lombardi (3 wins, 3 places) and Rick Hamilton (3W, 1P) both used Heartfullofstars in the last race.

They were the two winners of Vegas packages in Sunday’s $210 NHC play-in.

Richard Scangarello (4 firsts, 3 seconds) also undoubtedly raised a glass to Heartfullofstars sometime before the ball dropped on Sunday night.

Scangarello grabbed the $10,000 seat in Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers.

On New Year’s Day, the Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier was something of a key race.

Richard Resnik took the top spot with 6 wins and 1 place, followed by fellow $1,500 seat winners Dave “Tiger” Williams (3W, 1P), Wendy Long (4W, 2P), Dave “Gambling Actuary” Nichols (3W, 2P), NHC Hall of Famer Paul Shurman (3W, 3P) and Jim “Never” Settle (3W, 5P). 

First-place finisher Resnik was also one of five to earn seats in Monday’s $125 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Congratulations also go out to Scott Fitzgerald (3 wins, 5 places, and the day’s high score of $110.00), Jean Demarco (6W, 0P), Anthony DeCaspers (3W, 2P) and Michael Tomatz (5W, 1P).

Runner up in the Monday Flo-Cal game, Dave Williams took a backseat to nobody in the first HT Tour event of 2024.

Williams counted New Commission ($23.80, $13.20) in the 10th at Parx among his 3 firsts and 1 second in Monday’s $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, whose purse closed at $27,562. Williams got a winner’s share of $12,403.

Meanwhile the 4th-place finisher in that Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier won the $10,000 seat in the New Year’s Day Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio play-in.

That 4th-place finisher was Dave Nichols, who recorded 3 firsts and 2 seconds en route to victory.

David Nelson’s big horse of the first of the year was Fulminate ($24.40, $11.40) in race 9 at Gulfstream.

Nelson posted 4 wins and 2 places on the day, and he got the $6,500 package in Monday’s Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship qualifier.

Nick “48 Hrs.” Noce also had wire-to-wire winner Fulminate.

Noce (2 wins, 4 places) had no reason to fulminate that result. He was the winner of $5,699 in Monday’s $7,000 Gtd. Big Bucks Pick & Pray, which closed its doors with $8,142 in the kitty.

Happy New Year to all! And special congratulations to Pelham, N.H.’s Ed Peters, who finished 2023 as the year’s HT Tour Champ. (Peters was also the 2017 champion of The BIG One.) Finishing closest behind Peters in the 2023 standings were Dale Hatfield in second and Evan Trommer in third. 

Three hundred and sixty-three more days to go until we crown our 2024 HT Tour champ. Until then, good luck!