Saratoga opened last week, which means that summer racing has begun in earnest. Before we had Saratoga, though, we had Saratoga eve—and that was a good day for John Schulist.

Schulist won $2,500 for capturing Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash tourney, which went off with a takeout to players of 9.6%. Schulist accumulated 5 firsts and 3 seconds. His best return—$12.80 to win and $4.60 to place—came in the 10th at Parx with Twentyeighttothree. This, of course, means that Schulist is likely a big New York Jets fan since I believe that 28-3 was the final score of most of their games the last couple of years.

Stephen Gravina picked 6 winners on Wednesday.

Gravina had Twentyeighttothree plus another 5-1 winner, and that made his Wednesday return about Seventeentoone after he put up a $147 entry fee and won a $2,500 seat in our Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier.

In Wednesday’s Haskell Handicapping Challenge qualifier, Ted “Forbidden” Apple made collections in the first six races en route to a 5-win, 2-place afternoon.

Apple and runner up John Vail (5W, 2P) each picked up $1,000 entries for the July 20 online competition in this one. Go Girl ($15.40, $6.80) was the apple of Ted’s eye on Wednesday. Vail’s big horse was Revs Medal ($12.20, $4.60) in race 3 at Horseshoe Indy.

On opening day at Saratoga, the horse you really wanted to have—whether you were playing tourneys here or just trying your parimutuel luck—was The Queen’s M G ($91.00, $30.40) in race 10, the Schuylerville Stakes. William McMillan had her.

McMillan (3 firsts, 2 seconds) pocketed the $3,235 top prize in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, a multi-track affair that closed with a final purse of $7,189.

We also offered a special $10,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray on Thursday. It was focused solely on the meet-opening card at Saratoga.

Curtis Meyer had The Queens M G among his 2 firsts and 3 seconds. Meyer cashed for $6,048 in a game that was ultimately worth a total of $12,096.

In honor of Saratoga’s opening day, there was also a rare Thursday NHC qualifier over at HorsePlayers.

Jeff Joffrion (2 wins, 1 place) got the Vegas berth in this $125-buy-in one-seater. Yep…he hit The Queens M G.

The winner of Friday’s qualifier to the $400,000 Gtd. Spa & Surf Showdown was a familiar name—Anthony Spinazzola.

Spinazzola, of course, won last year’s Showdown, earning $210,623 in the process. Here, he had 5 winners, including Bullet on Tap ($23.60, $7.00) in race 6 at Monmouth. Joining Spinazzola in this year’s Showdown will be runner up Terry Jerge, who had Classic Creation ($20.60, $8.90) in the 7th at Saratoga among his 4 firsts and 2 seconds.

Scott Pulcini (4 firsts, 1 second) scored with Classic Creation. Even better, he came up with Disco Deano ($71.50, $27.40) in race 5 at the Spa.

Pulcini pocketed the up-top money of $9,576 for capturing Friday’s HT Tour battle, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which had a final prize pool of $21,280. It was also Pulcini’s second Friday HT Tour victory of 2024, which means he got an extra $500 as a bonus. (And he’ll receive a $1,000 premium for any subsequent Friday HT Tour game triumphs during the rest of the year.)

There were 4 players who secured $1,000 spots in Friday’s play-in to this Saturday’s Haskell Handicapping Challenge. 

Congratulations to Ryan Tyreman (2 wins, 3 places), Menas Philippides (3W, 1P), Peter Duca (4W, 1P) and Michael Guadagno (3W, 3P). Tyreman danced for joy after seeing Disco Deano’s moves. The other three all had Bullet on Tap as their top returner.

At HorsePlayers, “The Admiral” Steve Nemetz started strong with Disco Deano, and he never really let his foot off the gas thereafter. 

Nemetz hit the first three races, added another winner and two runners up after that, and won Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers by a margin of $60.60. 

With a score of $140.40, Mark Stillmock (5 wins, 1 place) was Friday’s high scorer. He led the way in the day’s $75 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Stillmock connected on both Disco Deano and Bullet on Tap. So did 3rd-place finisher—and fellow seat winner—Tim “The Commissioner” Smith (2W, 3P). Also gaining a 2025 seat was runner up David Goodhand, whose 4 firsts and 3 seconds were highlighted by Bullet on Tap.

One of Saturday’s two triple-digit scorers was Edward Chambers.

Chambers picked 6 winners, including Reynolds Channel ($21.60, $7.20) in the 8th at Saratoga, and he took home the grand prize of $14,691 in Saturday’s HT Tour game, our $25,000 Guaranteed competition. The final pot came to $32,648.

Despite again finishing with 6 winners, Chambers didn’t quite make it to triple digits in Saturday’s $165 NHC qualifier…but he finished first in that one too.

The closest pursuer to Chambers was Joe Johnson, who selected 6 winners (including 4 in a row at one point) and 1 place. Like Chambers, Johnson prospered with Reynolds Channel, and he finished with a tally of $82.90.

Johnson improved on that $82.90 mark in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier.

Almost all of the Saturday/Sunday features were Live-format games, and in this one, Johnson changed things up just a little bit. In this tourney, he booked 6 firsts, 2 seconds and a final score of $89.10.

The only Pick & Pray on the Saturday slate was our $7,000 Gtd. Big Bucks tourney, which paid out a total of $14,248.

Last year’s Flo-Cal Faceoff champ David Wolff got the $9,973 winner’s share for accumulating 5 winners (including Reynolds Channel) and 1 runner up.

Wolff also earned himself a spot in next month’s Spa & Surf Showdown.

With 5 wins and 2 places here in this Live tourney, Wolff managed to get the third and final $2,500 seat for August 3-4. Finishing ahead of Wolff were Keith Fenton (5W, 3P) and Gerry Addley (5W, 2P). Fenton made collections in the first 6 contest races. All three of the seat winners had Reynolds Channel in their portfolios.

Another “double seat winner” on Saturday was Frank “Plaster of” Paros.

Paros (5 wins, 2 places) and 2016 NHC Tour champ Cheryl McIntyre (5W, 0P) got the $3,500 berths in our first qualifier to the October 12 Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge. McIntyre smoked out Reynolds Channel. The only double-digit victor for Paros was Taking Candy ($13.60, $7.20) in race 9 at Saratoga.

Paros played the same picks back in Saturday’s Haskell Handicapping Challenge qualifier. 

Paros finished second among four happy contestants in this game. The winner—with the highest score of the day ($104.70)—was G.T. Nixon who put up 7 wins and 3 placesand finished with. $31.00+ bulge over Paros. Elizabeth Canning (5W, 2P) and Jim Sebes (4W, 2P) completed the trifecta and superfecta, respectively. 

Steve Simonovic and William “23” Sadoo both picked Reynolds Channel, and they both finished with 3 firsts and 1 second.

They also are now both paid-up, $2,500 entrants in the September 7 Kentucky Downs King of the Turf Challenge.

NHC Hall of Famer Paul Shurman (5 wins, 2 places) and Craig Amundson (5W, 1P) reeled in the rich $6,500 packages in Saturday’s qualifier to the July 27-28 Del Mar Summer Challenge.

Reynolds Channel was Shurman’s heavy lifter. Amundson’s visitors to the winner’s circle were topped by Taking Candy.

As was the case on Saturday, there were nine featured tourneys on the Sunday menu. A couple of them had somewhat out-of-the-ordinary results/developments.

Michael “Copa” Kavana’s 4 wins and 2 places led the way in Sunday’s Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier. Nothing notable to report here—just some fine handicapping, as we are used to seeing from Kavana.

NHC Hall of Famer Steve Wolfson Sr., however, pulled a “Phil Hellmuth” in finishing second. “What’s a Phil Hellmuth?” you ask. 

Hellmuth is known for (among other things) showing up late to the first day of the World Series of Poker’s Main Event so as to make a grand and highly-noticed entrance. We don’t think Wolfson did this on purpose, though, because (like Hellmuth) he got “blinded down” until he showed up, taking zeroes in the first two contest races. 

As it turned out, Wolfson could have skipped the first five races, and it wouldn’t have mattered. (He also could have departed a couple of races before the end!) Having winners like Popthechampagne Ro ($30.00, $11.80) in the 8th at Monmouth and Unstable Prince ($39.20, $16.20) in race 8 at Saratoga certainly does make up for a multitude of sins.

Another fascinating Sunday competition was Sunday’s $165 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

One of the two seat winners was Seth Morris, who hit 4 of the last 5 winners after hitting absolutely nothing over the first 7 heats. (At least he was present for all 7…we’ll certainly give him credit for that!)

The other was Steve Arrison (5 wins, 2 places). Arrison’s day started out quite differently from that of Morris. Arrison nailed the first 3 races.

What was somewhat unusual in this game was that the final race, race 10 at Saratoga, had an inquiry/objection that resulted in the top two finishers being flip-flopped. That was good news for Morris because his pick of 5-1 Write Off Jerry got elevated to first. It was even better news for Morris—and Arrison—that first-place finisher Barnstorming got demoted to 2nd. Barnstorming was 25-1, and both 3rd-place finisher John Marino and 4th-place contestant Benjamin Posey had chosen Barnstorming. Had the original results been allowed to stand, Marino and Posey would have gotten the NHC seats. Instead, they had to settle for $165 breakage refunds.

(For what it’s worth, I think the Saratoga stewards made the right call…even if one or two of the FOX commentators didn’t initially think so.) 

Sunday’s HT Tour game, our $20,000 Guaranteed tourney, went to Andrew Walker.

Walker walked off with $13,092 on the strength of 4 winners that included 14-1 Popthechampagne Ro and 18-1 Unstable Prince. The game closed with a total of $29,093 in the kitty.

Eric Pineiro compiled 7 Sunday winners including the final 4.

Pineiro got the $10,000 seat in Sunday’s BCBC Low Ratio qualifier. There were enough entries in order for runner up Matthew Weisenburger to receive a $5,000 partial entry.

Vineet Sharma squeezed out 2 winners and 1 runner up.

Sharma bagged the $4,274 top prize in Sunday’s $6,106 Big Bucks tourney.

Jim Videtic smoked out Popthechampagne Ro plus 2 other winners and 4 runners up.

Videtic popped the cork in celebration after taking Sunday’s Del Mar Summer Challenge qualifier.

Gary Lee Russell lost the Haskell Handicapping Challenge qualifier when Barnstorming got taken down in the finale. He didn’t use Barnstorming, though, in Sunday’s Kentucky Downs King of the Turf qualifier.

Russell’s scorecard here contained 6 winners, topped by Silardi ($22.20, $11.00) in the 9th at Monmouth, and he emerged with the $2,500 entry for September 7.

Lastly, Dr. Ronald Tang (3 firsts, 1 second) garnered the $3,500 entry in Sunday’s qualifier to the Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge.

For Tang it was Micro Brewsky ($18.60, $9.60) in the 7th at Monmouth that left an especially good taste in his mouth.

During the week ahead, Del Mar will join the fray, meaning that summer racing will really be in high gear. We’ll also have our first qualifiers to a brand new event, the BCBC Last Chance qualifier, to be held right here at HorseTourneys on Breeders’ Cup eve, Thursday, October 31. More details will come your way on that later this week.

In the meantime, sincere thanks to all of you who participated in tourneys during the week gone by.