It’s always a special feat to win a featured tourney on more than one day in a given week. Obviously, it’s especially rewarding when your victories come in some of our most lucrative events. Just ask Gary Blair.

There were two very big prices lurking out there on Friday, and Blair smoked both of them out.

Blair (2 wins, 2 places) hit both Yo Banana Boy ($51.00, $10.80) in the 7th at BAQ and Phoenician Ghost ($40.00, $14.60) in race 3 at Santa Anita. The “twin killing” lined Blair’s pockets to the tune of $8,379 in Friday’s HT Tour competition, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which ultimately was worth a total of $18,620.

On Sunday, Blair was at it again.

This day, the three highest-priced horses to win all ironically paid $24.00 and change. Blair had two of the three—Man O’Rose ($24.20, $9.40) in the first contest race, the opener at Santa Anita and Heads or Tails ($24.20, $7.20) in the 9th at Laurel. This time the prize for Blair was a $10,000 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge entry…the result of having defeated 32 rivals in Sunday’s Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers. Brian “BC” Chenvert came in second and received a $5,000 partial BCBC entry.

Bob Schreiter found himself on a nice little roll on Wednesday, the first day of the featured-tourney week.

Schreiter reeled off 4 straight winners, immediately followed by 3 consecutive runners up. The 7 collections added up to a victory worth $3,141 in Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash game, which closed with a final purse of $6,981. Schreiter’s best return came via John’s Promise ($16.00, $6.40) in race 8 at Delaware Park.

The day’s other feature, our qualifier to the $400,000 Gtd. Spa & Surf Showdown got a little weird at the end.

G.T. Nixon (5 wins, 4 places) and 2021 Flo-Cal Faceoff champion Alan Levitt (1W, 6P) were both in strong contention late, but both entered the last race, the 8th at Horseshoe Indy, with their top picks having been scratched. In Nixon’s case, his initial selection, Deluca, made it all the way to the paddock before being scratched. As fate would have it, that turned out to be a good thing. Nixon’s replacement horse won at 2-1 and Levitt’s finished 2nd. The payoffs propelled both into seat-winning positions at the conclusion of this tight, hard-fought—and, yes, slightly unusual—tourney.

Horseshoe Indy was again a major factor in the Thursday featured event, though this time it was a bomb and not chalk that determined things.

Greg “Cookin’ with” Gass hit Money War ($56.60, $16.20) in race 7 at the Shelbyville, Ind., oval. Gass also pumped out 3 other winners and 3 runners up to claim the top prize of $3,888 in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed with a pot of $8,640.

On Friday, NHC Hall of Famer Roger Cettina scored a hat trick.

Cettina put up 2 winners—including Phoenician Ghost ($40.00, $14.60) in the 3rd at Santa Anita—plus 4 runners up to earn the $1,000 in entry fees for the June 29-30 Hawthorne Summer Contests.

The Garden State handicapper was also one of three to pick up $1,000 seats in our first play-in to the Haskell Handicapping Challenge on July 20.

The other two were first-place finisher Mike Lazarus who counted Yo Banana Boy ($51.00, $10.80) in the 7th at BAQ and Phoenician Ghost among his 3 winners and third-place contestant Joseph Calvo (3 firsts, 2 seconds). Calvo’s big horse was Phoenician Ghost. The top three were the only three to crack triple figures.

Cettina didn’t crack triple figures in Friday’s qualifier to the Delaware Park Handicapping Contest…but he won that one too.

Despite his score taking a $35.00 haircut relative to his Hawthorne and Haskell tallies, Cettina prevailed with 1 win (Phoenician Ghost), 2 places and a final total of $68.00.

Cettina returned on Sunday to land his second Delaware seat of the week.

Here, Cettina (3 wins, 1 place) bested all except fellow $500 seat recipient Jerry McClenin (2W, 4P). They both connected with English Conqueror ($24.60, $9.80) in race 6 at BAQ.

Hopping back to Friday, Jim Burrell was another who liked Phoenician Ghost in the 3rd at Santa Anita. 

Burrell (3 firsts, 2 seconds) grabbed the $2,500 entry in Friday’s qualifier to Leg 3 of the 2024 HT Grand Slam, the Spa & Surf Showdown.

Phoenician Ghost also helped Andy Asaro stay on his torrid streak.

A couple of weeks ago, Asaro won an NHC seat, a BCBC entry and our Saturday cash feature. Last week, he took home a $6,500 Del Mar Summer Challenge package. This past Friday, he added another Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge seat to his growing portfolio. He had 2 winners and a place, and that place collection, worth $4.60, was critical, enabling him to edge past Alan Levitt and get into the top spot. It was quite a comeback for Asaro after he scored nothing on the first 6 contest races.

The other Friday feature at HorsePlayers, our always-popular $75 NHC qualifier, was captured by Rick “I-65” Broth (3 wins, 1 place).

Broth came to a boil with both of the Friday longshots—Yo Banana Boy ($51.00, $10.80) in the 7th at BAQ and Phoenician Ghost. Runner up Mike Abernathy was already double-qualified and, thus, playing just for NHC Tour points. That left the other two available spots to 3rd-place finisher Britton Smith (5W, 1P) and superfecta-completer James Aspenleiter (2W, 0P). Smith nailed Phoenician Ghost. Like Broth, Aspenleiter came up with both Friday bombs.

David Goodhand (2 firsts, 1 second) had Yo Banana Boy as a springboard to success in Friday’s Lone Star Summer Betting Challenge qualifier.

After a one-day respite, the next Lone Star Summer Betting Challenge play-in took place on Sunday—and David Goodhand won that one too.

With two entries, Goodhand will clearly be playing a good hand in the June 29 on-track competition in Grand Prairie, Tex. On Sunday, Goodhand (2 firsts, 3 seconds) guessed right on Heads or Tails ($26.20, $7.20) in the 9th at Laurel.

On Saturday, David Nelson was one of two multiple victors.

Nelson picked 5 winners, including Monmouth race 11 dead-heat winner Fort Washington ($31.80, $22.00), and he led the way in Saturday’s $165 NHC qualifier here at HorseTourneys. Also grabbing a 2025 Vegas seat was runner up Stephen Diaz. Fort Washington was Diaz’s only winner, but he augmented that hit with 4 place collections—and that got him 2nd place by 20 cents over a hard-luck Steven Meier. Coastal Mission ran 2nd for Meier at 6-1 in the final contest race, the Salvator Mile, but the $5.60 place mutuel was 20 cents too little (due to the favorite running first).

As for David Nelson, he prospered with the same 5-win picks elsewhere.

Nelson pulled off the elusive NHC-BCBC single-day qualifying double thanks to his triumph in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge play-in over at HorsePlayers.

The other multiple-success story on Saturday was authored by Michael Caposio.

Fort Washington was part of Caposio’s victorious 3-win, 1-place effort in Saturday’s Del Mar Summer Challenge qualifier.

The Temecula, Calif., car dealer utilized the same selections in Saturday’s Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier.

There were enough entries in this one for two $2,500 entries to be awarded, and the other one went to runner up Chip Armbruster (3W, 2P). Armbruster also had 35-1 Fort Washington on his scorecard.

Having won 4,887 races (10th all-time), trainer Karl Broberg knows the benefits that competing in short fields can offer. So perhaps that explains why his quest for a 2025 NHC seat involved a Low Ratio qualifier.

Fort Washington plus 3 place collections (two of them paying double digits) allowed Broberg to get his picture taken in the winner’s circle following this 26-entry competition at HorsePlayers. He’ll have to deal with a larger group of opponents in the NHC next March.

Scott Eyraud (2 wins, 1 place) and Mike Martin (1W, 2P) each liked Fort Washington.

Eyraud and Martin accounted for the two available $500 seats in Saturday’s qualifier to the upcoming Delaware Park Handicapping Contest on June 22.

On the Saturday cash-game front, Dale Hatfield won the feud in the week’s richest tourney, our $25,000 Guaranteed affair, which also served as the day’s HT Tour event.

Hatfield recorded 4 winners, including Fort Washington, en route to a $13,305 payday. The final prize pool here settled at $29,568.

Kevin Willett didn’t have Fort Washington. In fact, his biggest Saturday winner returned just $7.60.

In all, however, Willett picked 6 winners—all paying between $4.60 and $7.60—and that yielded him the $7,836 grand prize in Saturday’s $7,000 Gtd. Big Bucks Pick & Pray, which closed its doors with $11,195 in the kitty. And while Willett may not have come up with Fort Washington, he did have the horse—Running Bee ($6.20, $6.80)—that dead heated Fort Washington for the victory in the Grade III Monmouth Stakes.

On Sunday, it was certainly a happy Father’s Day for 2023 HT Tour champion Ed Peters.

As alluded to earlier, the three top-priced winners on Sunday paid $24.60, $24.20 and $24.20, respectively. Peters (3 firsts, 2 seconds) had two of the three in Sunday’s HT Tour battle.

Peters pocketed $11,221 for taking Sunday’s $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which was ultimately worth a total of $24,937.

The Granite Stater ran the same picks back in Sunday’s Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier.

Peters got a $2,500 seat here for August 3-4 as did second-place finisher Jeff Sandler (4 wins, 6 places). Sandler’s top horse was also Peters’s top horse—English Conqueror ($24.60, $9.80) in the 6th at BAQ.

While Peters doped out two of the three 11-1 winners on Sunday, Dr. Ron Tang (5 wins, 2 places) nailed all three.

Tang led the way in Sunday’s play-in to the Haskell Handicapping Challenge, which saw Gary Sutton (4W, 2P) and Brian “BC” Chenvert also garner $1,000 entries for July 20.

Tang finished with a score of $141.00. Sunday’s top scorer was Gary Johnson with $145.20.

Johnson whiffed on the final four races, but he could afford to after firing off 6 wins (including all three $24.00 horses) and a place over the first eight in Sunday’s special 5-seats-guaranteed NHC Pick & Pray at HorsePlayers. Gregg “Sky” Kingma (4 wins, 1 place) also swept the “11-1 triple crown” and finished second. Two-time NHC Tour champion Joseph “Kevin” Costello finished third. He was already double qualified, so he didn’t get a seat, but he will certainly get a lot of NHC Tour points in his quest for a third title. Meanwhile the remaining three seats to the 2025 Big Dance went to NHC Hall of Famer Sally Goodall (4W, 0P), who will be making a record 23rd appearance in the world’s most prestigious handicapping contest, 2020 Spa & Surf Showdown champ Scott Fiedler (4W, 2P) and Kris Andaur (5W, 1P). The six at the top of the leaderboard were the six who managed to achieve scores of $110 or more.

You had to really kill it to do well in that 5-seat NHC qualifier. You didn’t have to kill it to win Sunday’s $5,088 Big Bucks tourney.

Bay Stater George Chute made the most out of a little by winning $3,562 with a final score of $40.00—which was less than a flat-bet profit for the 12 contest races. Chute’s $40.00 total was comprised of 2 firsts and 6 seconds. His top winner paid $4.40.

Heads or Tails ($24.20, $7.20) in the 9th at Laurel was the heavy lifter on Sunday for Michael Oldham.

Oldham exited with the $1,000 in entry fees for the June 29-30 Hawthorne Summer Contests.

We hope you all had a pleasant Father’s Day weekend—even you non-dads—and we thank you for taking part in the action during the past week. More featured-tourney fun will come your way again starting on Wednesday (Juneteenth!). Good luck if you play.