There is still one mystery surrounding the inaugural edition of the Pick & Pray Classic. When will Teresa Stillmock find out that her husband won $158,331 in it? As of now, she still doesn’t know.

The victory represented, by far, the biggest score of Mark Stillmock’s life. But the 65-year-old structural engineer from Omaha, Neb., has a playful relationship with his wife when it comes to his horseplaying, and he is purposely being a bit…coy…with her.

“Usually she doesn’t ask how I did,” Stillmock laughed. “She knows I’m playing when it’s a Live tournament, but when it’s a Pick & Pray, she often doesn’t realize it.”

Indeed, Stillmock — a grandfather of six — spent much of Saturday refinishing his upstairs bathroom and smoking some ribs in his backyard. Occasionally he would check the Pick & Pray Classic leaderboard to see how he was doing, but only when it got dark out did he watch a few races on his phone. As far as Teresa knew, it was just another weekend.

“It will be interesting to see how long it takes her to find out,” Mark said. “My son Michael knows. He might let it slip.”

Any chance that Teresa will be a little miffed at Mark for holding out on her like he’s doing?

“I don’t think so,” he deadpanned. “She knows I’m not an extravagant person. Most of the money will go into an investment account. Although, I DO need a new laptop. The one I have is about 15 years old. Some of my friends think it’s funny that I still use it.”

Even though Stillmock may feel that he can get by with an outdated computer for his engineering duties, he takes no such chances with his handicapping data.

“I handicap early in the morning and use Betmix to ‘qualify’ horses,” he explained. “I’ll go through a race and decide whether a horse is ‘qualified’ or ‘not qualified’ based on a number of factors like sire, jockey, trainer, speed and pace. Then I’ll just make a pick based on how I see the race, Morning line odds don’t influence me at all. I’ll sometimes use Brisnet Top 3 ratings to help me decide, And Betmix color-codes positive return-on-investment horses in green. I’d say 80-90% of the horses I play are value-type horses.”

Stillmock also likes to surround himself with smart people whenever he can. At recent NHCs, he has sat at the same table as HorseTourneys stalwarts Scott Fiedler and G.T. Nixon. Back home, he likes to hang out with what he calls his “Nebraska posse.”

“We’re just a bunch of like-minded people who sort of gravitated to each other,” Mark said. “One is an accountant, one’s a union organizer, another is a highly-successful computer salesman, and there’s a lawyer and a high school teacher. We used to go to handicapping seminars at Horsemen’s Park and do some Pick 6 plays together or do some Derby stuff. We share a lot of ideas. Two of the ones I have shared with them are 1. I cannot make any money playing low-odds horses; and 2. My key to hitting longshots is ‘You first have to play them!’”

Those who followed the Pick & Pray Classic knows that Stillmock is not bashful about swinging for the fences. He nailed the three biggest prices—20-1, 36-1 and 26-1 winners—during the course of the two days. In a phone conversation, Stillmock did confess to also playing several short-priced horsesl last weekend, though most of them didn’t do very well.

“Calling me ‘a longshot player’ is fair,” he said. “They’re key to my strategy. I consider a longshot to be 15-1 or more. If you hit one, you’re in contention. If you hit two, you’re in the driver’s seat. Even if you just hit one, you’d need to hit about six favorites to equal the scoring total from the one longshot—and hitting six favorites is hard!”

Another thing Stillmock finds hard is playing live-bankroll contests like the BCBC.

“You need to get to $30,000 first. Then you basically need to bet that $30,000 on a 5-1 shot and hope it wins. I don’t know if that is in my nature.”

That said, Stillmock would like to perform better in contests such as the BCBC—and to finish in the top 10 of the NHC. (He finished 32nd in the most recent edition of the Las Vegas contest.)

His main goal, though, is to repeat—anywhere—a victory on the scale of what he just achieved in the Pick & Pray Classic. 

Just remember…if he does so, don’t spill the beans to Mrs. Stillmock.