One lives in New York. One resides in California. Both are NHC Hall of Famers. Both won a lot last week here at HorseTourneys.

For New Yawka Paul Shurman, the big day was Friday.

At one point, Paul picked 4 winners in a row, including Portrait of Addie ($36.40, $15.60) in the 9th at BAQ, and he finished with 5 wins and a place in all. That brought him the $2,000 seat in Friday’s Pick & Pray Classic qualifier. It was certainly a nice win…yet it was the least lucrative of Paul’s Friday successes.

In Friday’s $75 NHC qualifier, Shurman bested all except 2018 Horse Player World Series champion — and fellow Portrait of Addie supporter — Bob Montgomery (4 wins, 1 place). 

This will be Paul’s 23 NHC appearance. He once won $100,000 for finishing 3rd there. Perhaps more impressive is that he has won $10,000 or more at the NHC six times. If 2025 happens to be a down year for Shurman in Vegas, he can at least fund some of his future contest entries with the $6,750 he collected here on Friday.

That’s the sum that Shurman received for using the same selections in Friday’s HT Tour game, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray. 

Two days later, it was brother Bill’s turn. 

Bill had Sunday’s two biggest prices—Another Mystery ($31.00, $11.60) in the 7th at Hawthorne and Commander ($40.00, $16.40) in the final contest race, the 6th at Santa Anita. Overall, he had 4 firsts and 2 seconds and won a $3,500 Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge seat as did another California resident, Michael Caposio (2 wins, 2 places). Caposio didn’t have Commander at the end, but he got a $14.40 place collection in the finale with 14-1 runner up Jetovator, which moved him up into second position. 

In Sunday’s BCBC Last Chance Tourney qualifier, Bill doubled down.

It was hard to grow up in the 1970s in the New York City area like Bill did without occasionally seeing a (typically fancy) car in a parking lot purposely taking up two spaces. That’s kind of what Bill did in this game (minus the obnoxiousness).

I’m not sure if it was omnipresent video surveillance or the discontinuation of Lincoln Continentals, but you don’t see one car occupying two spots much anymore. One thing you do see a lot lately is “Pistol” Pete Acocella winning the first featured cash tourney of the week.

For the second Wednesday in a row, Acocella finished first in our $5,000 guaranteed tourney. His 4 wins and 2 places included Big Boys Answer ($33.60, $16.80) in the 9th at Parx, and he banked $2,830 in a game ultimately worth a total of $6,390.

After a Shurmanesque run a couple of weeks ago, Dave “Gambling Actuary” Nichols enjoyed another nice victory.

Nichols (3 firsts, 1 second) used 3 very small collections plus Big Boys Answer to scoop up the $3,500 berth in Wednesday’s Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge qualifier.

Big Boys Answer was among 4 straight Wednesday winners reeled off by Ted “Forbidden” Apple. 

Apple finished with 5 winners on the day, and he earned the $2,000 seat in Wednesday’s play-in to the final leg of the 2024 HorseTourneys Grand Slam, the $300,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray Classic.

The lone Thursday feature was dominated by Phileas Fogg ($25.40, $8.00) and Jeff Ferren.

The BAQ race 7 winner was part of a 4-win, 2-place day for Ferren, who bagged $2,923 for prevailing in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which had a final purse of $6,497.

His near-namesake may have lost on Jeopardy, but Howard Yancovitch won Friday’s BCBC Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Recording 2 wins and 3 places, Yankcovitch operated like a surgeon, and, in particular, his pick of 17-1 winner Portrait of Addie really made his opponents eat it.

The only weird thing about Nick Seevers’s win in Friday’s Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge is that it was the only featured-tourney success of the day that didn’t involve Portrait of Addie.

Instead, Seevers pieced things together with 4 modest wins and 2 places. His top return came in the final contest race with Sareeha ($10.20, $5.40) in the 5th at Santa Anita.

Kevin Engelhard (3 wins, 2 places) led the way in Friday’s BCBC Last Chance Tourney qualifier.

Obviously Engelhard and the other $750 seat recipient, runner-up A.J. Benton (3W, 0P), both had Portrait of Addie. Benton, by the way, nearly pulled off a Bill Shurman double-parking job (although Benton used two sets of picks rather than one).

Benton came right back the next day and grabbed another BCBC Last Chance Tourney entry.

Benton (4 firsts, 1 second) had one of the day’s two big longshots in Cabo Spirit ($51.20, $20.40) in the 7th at Santa Anita. The other “BCBCLC” berth went to Mark Urbanski, who made collections in each of the first 7 contest races as part of a 6-win, 2-place effort. His best pick came right at the outset with Ivory Moon ($22.80, $11.20) in the opener at Santa Anita. 

A couple of weeks ago, Jim Settle won four grand prizes. This past week, Jim had to settle for one.

A good one it was, though. As was the case with Mark Urbanski, Settle’s big horse—Ivory Moon—came early on. After that, he added another 3 winners and 3 runners up en route to a $2,000 Pick & Pray Classic entry.

We noted earlier that A.J. Benton smoked out one of the day’s two big prices in coming up with Cabo Spirit. Dan DiCorcia managed to unearth both of them.

The other was BAQ race 12 wire-job winner Counter Attack ($53.50, $25.20). DiCorcia augmented the bombs with a couple of less gaudy victors, and he made off with the $13,721 top prize in our richest game of the week, Saturday’s $25,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray (an HT Tour event), which wound up paying out a total of $30,492.

Another who had both Counter Attack and Cabo Spirit was George Novick.

That was all Novick came up with, but it was enough. He and runner up Ellen Patrick-Leavell (4 wins, 2 places) each picked up NHC spots in Saturday’s $165 qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Tim Yohler (1 win, 6 places) and Ryan Flanders (2W, 4P) were the two $3,500 entry earners in Saturday’s Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge qualifier.

BAQ race 12 cap horse Counter Attack was the parimutuel star of the day for both.

Damian Terenzio (4 wins, 3 places) also liked Counter Attack.

Terenzio was rewarded with $8,549 for capturing Saturday’s $12,213 Big Bucks Pick & Pray.

The high score of the day on Saturday was recorded by Ken Jordan over at HorsePlayers.

Jordan doped out 5 double-digit winners that ranged in price from $14.20 up to Counter Attack’s $53.50, and he romped to a $70.10 (more than a cap horse) victory in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Pick & Pray. Finishing that distant but well-compensated second was Mark Stovall (3 wins, 5 places), who also got a $10,000 scholarship for the world’s most prestigious live-bankroll handicapping contest.

Sunday’s top scorer was Christopher Dewey.

Dewey hit it big in the final contest race (SA6) with Commander ($40.00, $16.40). Before that, he put up 4 wins and a place, and he got the up-top money of $9,548 in Sunday’s HT Tour battle, our $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed with a final pot of $21,218.

In Sunday’s other featured cash game, Joseph Zuer (3 firsts, 2 seconds) also put himself in command by having Commander.

Zuer cashed out for $4,274 in Sunday’s $6,106 Big Bucks tourney.

Ron Kaufman also mirrored the sudden success of the Washington Football Team by calling on Commander.

Kaufman (2 wins, 2 places) punched his ticket to Vegas by taking Sunday’s $165 NHC qualifier—restricted to those who had not yet earned a 2025 seat—at HorsePlayers.

For Robert “Amazing” Grace (5 wins, 0 places) and David Nelson (4W, 1P), the Sunday heavy lifter was Another Mystery ($31.00, $11.60) in race 7 at Hawthorne.

Grace and Nelson will now be in the starting gate for the inaugural edition of the $300,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray Classic here on November 23-24.

Two players earned berths on Sunday for the November 1-2 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.

Congratulations to Raj Satyan (3 wins, 3 places) and Timothy “If it ain’t” Brokl (2W, 2P). Satyan prospered with Another Mystery and a final-contest-race $14.40 place collection with Jetovator. Brokl did even better in the contest nightcap with Commander.

Next week should feature lots of great racing with Keeneland opening up and many Breeders’ Cup preps across the country. It will also have the final weekend of qualifying for the popular Keeneland Fall BCBC/NHC Challenge on October 12. Hope to see you around the site next week…and back here in this space the following Monday. Good luck!