Two weeks ago, we began running $179 “Happy Hour” Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Qualifiers on Thursdays at HorsePlayers. So far, there has been just one winner.

Tim Yohler doubled his pleasure by taking this special Thursday feature for a second consecutive week. On October 3, he was best of 81. This past Thursday, he vanquished 99 rivals thanks to 4 winners from just 8 contest races. Yohler’s best pick was Eunomia ($23.46, 9.70) in race 7 at Keeneland. Brett Wiener received a $5,000 partial BCBC entry for coming in second.

We trust that Yohler (pictured above) will be back in action this coming Thursday, looking to complete what would be a unique natural hat trick.

A.J. Benton got his featured-tourney week off to a winning start by smoking out three double-digit winners in Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash tourney.

By far the gaudiest of Benton’s three victors was Bracket Buster ($69.42, $28.36) in race 6 at Keeneland. The bracket-busting bomb banked Benton $2,995…from a total final purse of $6,606.

G.T. Nixon was the one in Wednesday’s BCBC Last Chance Tourney qualifier.

The pride of Port Jervis, N.Y., connected with Divine Romance ($38.20, $11.40) in the 7th at Parx plus two other winners and three runners up.

The earlier-mentioned 10-1 winner of Thursday’s race 7 at Keeneland—Eunomia—was the star of the day for Matthew Filios.

Filios recorded 4 wins and 2 places in all, and he exited with the $3,483 top prize in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed with a final pot of $7,742.

Ken Jordan (3 firsts, 1 second) also played Eunomia.

Jordan was the $2,000 seat winner in Thursday’s qualifier to the $300,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray Classic here on November 23-24. The Pick & Pray Classic serves as the fourth and final leg of the 2024 HorseTourneys Grand Slam.

Friday was pretty much an “all or nothing” day around here. The horse you really needed to have was Bah Humbug in race 10 at Keeneland. Bah Humbug got several people into the winning spirit by returning $46.28 to win and $22.72 to place. Not having that cap horse created “Bah humbug” feelings of a different sort since the second biggest win price of the day was just $7.18. 

Certainly, the top-heavy, “one extreme or the other” phenomenon was exacerbated by the cancellation of Friday racing at BAQ, which knocked our featured schedule down to 7 races. The cancellation, as you probably heard, was due to Resorts World Casino treating the roof of the Aqueduct property with some sort of chemical that caused fumes so strong that high-perched racing officials were forced to vacate their work space. Just when you think you’ve heard it all…

The only fumes detectable in the Peter Rogers household on Friday were those created when he lit up his victory cigar.

Rogers counted Bah Humbug among his 3 wins and 1 place, and he ho-ho-ho’d his way to a victory worth $6,807 in Friday’s HT Tour game, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which was ultimately worth a total of $15,128.

Timothy Jacobs (3 wins, 0 places) and Wendy Long (2W, 1P) both raised a glass of cheer to Bah Humbug.

Jacobs and Long each secured $10,000 entries in Friday’s Low Ratio Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Gregg “Sky” Kingma (1 win, 2 places) led the way in Friday’s $75 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

One of Kingma’s place collections paid like a winner—it returned $19.34. Kingma and fellow Vegas berth earner Sarah Wiener (2W, 2P) utilized Bah Humbug as their primary source of scoring.

Not only did 2023 Players Championship winner Lucas Van Zandt and 2023 HT Tour champ Ed Peters have the same big winner (Bah Humbug), they had the same place horse…and nothing else.

Van Zandt and Peters, therefore, wound up in a happy tie in Friday’s two-seat BCBC Last Chance Tourney qualifier.

Obviously a single big price can have an outsized effect on the outcome of tourneys when there aren’t any other prices (and, thus, paths to victory) out there. For what it’s worth, 11 of 91 entrants in the $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray had 22-1 Bah Humbug in the 10th at Keeneland. “Just” 2 of 21 had her in the BCBC Last Chance Tourney qualifier. There were 21 Bah Humbug picks in the 382-entry NHC qualifier. And z relatively high 6 of 46 were on the cap horse in the BCBC Low Ratio play-in. So the usage percentage on this 22-1 horse ranged between 5.4% and 13% depending on which tourney we are talking about.

Just having two—rather than one—big longshot in play can make a very big difference in terms of how a contest plays out. That was the case on Saturday when Surface to Air ($50.12, $19.62) in the 9th at Keeneland and Quick Omen ($41.60, $9.40) in the opener at Santa Anita each reported home first. Dan Weisenburger had ‘em both and wound up with the high score of the day ($152.62).

Weisenburger also wound up with a Vegas berth for prevailing in Saturday’s NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. This competition was restricted to those who had yet to obtain a 2025 spot.

Like Weisenburger, Raj Satyan also doped out both Surfact to Air and Quick Omen

Satyan (2 wins, 4 places) showed the way in Saturday $179 BCBC qualifier, which saw 2023 Spa & Surf Showdown champion Anthony Spinazzola (4W, including Quick Omen, 3P) also snag a $10,000 seat for finishing 2nd.

Spinazzola used similar but slightly different selections in Saturday’s Pick & Pray Classic qualifier.

Spinazzola again had 4 firsts and 3 seconds here, but his score went up by about 4 bucks. The result this time was a first-place finish—and a $2,000 entry. Raymond Gallant Jr. got the other available $2,000 spot for his 3 wins and 3 places that included Surface to Air.

Brian O’Keefe had the winners (including Quick Omen) in each of the first four Saturday contest races.

O’Keefe finished the day with 6 firsts, 3 seconds and a winning total of $143.86 in Saturday’s HT Tour event, our $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed with a final purse of $24,640. O’Keefe’s share of that amounted to $12,320.

Howard Welsh (3 wins, 2 places) had Surface to Air en route to defeating 10 foes in Saturday’s $11,195 Big Bucks Pick & Pray.

Welsh received a first-place payout of $7,836 for his efforts.

Dan Brockman (3 wins, 1 place), Jim “Never” Settle (3W, 1P) and reigning (i.e. 2019) Horse Players World Series champ Loyal Sprague (3W, 6P) each picked up $750 entries in Saturday’s BCBC Last Chance Tourney qualifier.

For Settle, it was his fourth straight week earning a grand prize here. Over that stretch, he has amassed seven such awards. Settle had Quick Omen during the course of his second-place performance. Winner Brockman hit Surface to Air. Sprague, meanwhile, was the only Saturday top-prize winner to turn the trick without having either Surface to Air or Quick Omen. He overcame those longshot omissions by making collections in each of the first 7 contest races and adding a win and a place thereafter.

The horse on the scorecards of most of our Sunday winners was Rock the Weekend ($31.40, $15.80) in the 7th at BAQ.

Andrew Walker (3 wins, 3 places) had Rock the Weekend, and that allowed him to do just that. Walker cashed for $10,335 in Sunday’s HT Tour battle, our $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which ultimately was worth a total of $22,968.

Rock the Weekend was the best of three Sunday winners picked by John “Detlef” Schimpf.

Schimpf hoisted the $2,000 seat above his head at the conclusion of Sunday’s Pick & Pray Classic qualifier.

Rock the Weekend was Ronald Tang’s only Sunday visitor to the winner’s circle.

Fortunately for the good doctor, Tang added three place collections to his scoresheet, and he prevailed in Sunday’s qualifier to the October 27 Santa Anita Closing Day Challenge.

After a bit of a hiatus, Evan Trommer is back in these pages after hitting Rock the Weekend plus one other winner and 3 runners up.

Trommer took home the up-top money of $4,986 in Sunday’s $7,124 Big Bucks tourney.

Two Stephens sat atop the leaderboard following Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Those two would be Stephen McNatton (4 wins, 2 places) and Stephen Spinelli (3W, 3P). Yes, they both played Rock the Weekend. Joseph Maneen Jr. earned a $5,000 partial BCBC entry for finishing 3rd.

Sunday’s highest score was put up by Gus Meyers (4 wins, 3 places), who not only hit Rock the Weekend but also had the second-biggest price of the day in Future is Now ($15.76, $5.70 in the 8th at Keeneland).

Meyers punched his ticket to Vegas in Sunday’s $210 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. So did runner up Eliot “Rock the Weekend” Honaker (4W, 2P).

There were four winners of $750 berths in Sunday’s play-in to the BCBC Last Chance Tourney here on Halloween. Congratulations to Eddie “Hoss” Inman (4 wins, 5 places), Marc Stateler (3W, 4P), Ed Peters (1W, 4P) and Peter Rogers (2W, 2P).

Peters and Rogers each recorded victories on Friday as well. They both backed Rock the Weekend in this one. However, the top two—Inman and Stateler—got the job done with Future is Now as their top yielder.

I’ll be away on company business next week, so the next Weekly Recap will come your way on Monday, October 28. In the meantime, good luck with your contest play—and try to stay clear of those roof fumes.