There’s an old saying in horse racing: Keep yourself in the best possible company and your horses in the worst. In a way, Scott Galica did that on Saturday.

There were nine featured tourneys on Saturday that were decided on a 12-race menu that was split up amongst Aqueduct, Gulfstream, Santa Anita and Tampa Bay Downs. Not surprisingly, the lowest winning score of the nine ($44.50) came in the 8-entry Big Bucks Pick & Pray. The six highest first-place tallies were $102.90, $94.10, $92.60, $88.50, $78.90 and $70.10. Then there were the two identical scores—$64.00—put up in victory by Scott Galica. Whatever Galica might have lacked in style points, though, he more than made up for in prize winnings.

For starters, Galica’s unassuming total landed him in the winner’s circle of our richest event of the week, our $25,000 Guaranteed cash game, which wound up paying out a total of $27,104. Catching a $4.60 place payoff at the end allowed Galica (3 wins, 4 places) to retain his narrow, 50-cent lead over runner up Tony Calabrese. Galica pocketed $12,196, while Calabrese had to settle for $5,420.

Galica’s margin of victory was twice as large—a full dollar!—in Saturday’s Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship qualifier.

This time, at least, there was no hard-luck story to tell about the runner up since he, Kenneth Mollicone (2 wins, 4 places), also earned a bulky $6,500 package for the January 25th competition. The sad story instead belonged to third-place finisher Rafael Lopez, who ended up just 40 cents behind Mollicone in this two-seater. 

Ironically, the day’s lone double-winner in 12-race tourneys on Sunday was also the person who recorded the afternoon’s lowest first-place score.

There’s a slight asterisk in this case. Although, to be sure, James Lisowsky’s mark of $68.20 in capturing Sunday’s NHC Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers for non-winners of a 2025 seat was the day’s most unassuming. Sunday’s features were Live-format games, however, and in the same day’s Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier, Lisowsky went from 2 wins, 2 places and $68.20 to 3 wins, 3 places and $86.40.

Here, Lisowsky shared the spotlight (and the $1,500 entries) with future Faceoff opponents “Pistol” Pete Acocella (2W, 1P) and Seth Morris (1W, 4P). All three connected on Gun It ($34.80, $10.80) in the 7th at Aqueduct. (The Gun It hit was key. We’ll touch more on that later.)

At any rate, it was a pretty terrific yield for the very-well-spotted Galica, whose top winner was Jerry The Nipper ($11.80, $6.40) in race 9 at Gulfstream. His total cash and prizes came to $18,696. 

With Christmas landing on a Wednesday (and Calder no longer in business), the featured-tourney week began on Thursday.

One of the best holiday presents for NHC Hall of Famer and 2003 champ Steve Wolfson Jr. had to be the $4,617 he unwrapped on Thursday after taking the day’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray on the strength of 4 firsts and 2 seconds. Wolfson made himself very hard to beat by smoking out a pair of $70.00+ horses—David’s Rose ($70.80, $17.80) in the 9th at Gulfstream and Kopion ($77.40, $31.20) in race 10 at Santa Anita. The final purse in this event amounted to $11,543.

Christopher Olsson (2 wins, 2 places) also came up with both of the $70 winners.

Even at that, Olsson didn’t manage to finish first. That honor went to 2022 NHC Tour champion Jay Johns. The good news for Olsson is that this tourney was a special $125 NHC Pick & Pray at HorsePlayers, and Johns was already double qualified. So the seat fell back one spot to Olsson in second place.

David Guberman didn’t have Kopion, but he did play David’s Rock plus another nice price horse on Thursday.

The “other horse” for Guberman (3 wins, 3 places) was JB Strikes Back ($34.80, $13.60) in race 6 at Santa Anita. Guberman led a group of three $1,500 seat winners in Thursday’s qualifier to the $250,000 Gtd. Flo-Cal Faceoff here on Feb. 1-2. The other two were Robin Buser (2W, 2P) and Paul Weizer (also 2W, 2P).

The two players to break triple figures were the two to emerge with the seats in Friday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff play-in. 

Congratulations to John Schimpf (4 wins, 1 place) and NHC Hall of Famer Brett Wiener (5W, 1P). The big horse for Schimpf was Drama Chorus ($47.60, $19.20) in race 7 at Tampa. For Wiener, it was Chuck Willis ($23.00, $15.00) who wired the 6th at Aqueduct.

Scott Eyraud (3 wins, 2 places) and Phil “On the” Lam (4W, 2P) each nailed both Chuck Willis and Drama Chorus.

Eyraud and Lam got the low-cost berths in Friday’s $75 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Another who had the Chuck Willis-Drama Chorus “double” was Thomas Michael Abinanti.

Abinanti put up four winners to account for the other Friday feature at HorsePlayers—a $500 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio play-in.

Chuck Willis and Drama Chorus were among five winners doped out on Friday by Anthony Robb.

Robb took the first HT Tour game of the week, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed its doors wit $21,280 in the kitty. Robb’s share of that wound up being $9,576.

Clearly, Friday’s successful players really brought their “A” game to the festivities to come up with so many pricy horses. So did Jon “We’ll always have” Paros.

With a total of $102.90 built on 5 wins and 3 places, Paros registered the highest score of the day in capturing Saturday’s $165 NHC Pick & Pray here at HorseTourneys. Runner up Ed Claunch was already double-qualified, so the other available Vegas package went to Roland Arroyo (4W, 2P) in third. The top winner for both Paros and Arroyo came in the first contest heat when Liberte de Bayeux got his picture taken following the 6th race at Aqueduct.

Despite blanking on the final five contest races, Jim Trepinski won the grand prize in Saturday’s other cash feature.

Trepinski’s top return among 2 winners and 3 places came courtesy of Red Wind ($10.60, $4.00) in the 8th at Tampa. Trepinski collected $5,699 in Saturday’s $8,142 Big Bucks Pick & Pray—a game in which none of the eight entrants turned a flat-bet profit with their 12 selections.

David Nelson picked 4 winners to take Saturday’s Houston Betting Championship qualifier.

Nelson’s quick quartet included Liberte de Bayeux plus Candy Grey ($16.20, $7.80) in the 11th at Gulfstream. 

Another Liberte de Bayeux fan was Jamey Gjetley.

Gjetley compiled 5 wins and a place to secure the $10,000 seat in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier.

There was also an NHC Low Ratio play-in on the Saturday bill of fare at HorsePlayers.

The winner was Trevor Holt, whose 5 firsts and 2 seconds were topped by Red Wind in race 8 at Tampa.

Back here at HorseTourneys, three players punched their tickets on Saturday for the $250,000 Gtd. Flo-Cal Faceoff.

Congratulations to Ivar Cuellar (5 wins, 1 place), Dale Hatfield (4W, 1P) and Rafael Lopez (3W, 4P). After just missing behind Scott Galica and Kenneth Mollicone in the earlier-mentioned Pegasus qualifier, Lopez salvaged his Saturday here with an unusual-looking scorecard. Lopez got place collections in each of the first four contest races, then he whiffed on five races in a row before sweeping the winners of the final three contest heats.

In the previous Weekly Recap, we led with Curtis Meyer winning three tourneys, including an NHC qualifier. This past Sunday, Meyer added a Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge entry to his burgeoning contest portfolio.

Meyer’s five Sunday winners at HorsePlayers, included Gun It ($34.80, $10.80) in the 7th at Aqueduct. This matched perfectly the winning profile of the day. The second-biggest win price of the day behind Gun It—among our 12 contest races—was $10.20. Consequently, every single one of the grand-prize winners in our featured 12-race tourneys had Gun It among their selections. It made for a tough day for those who didn’t “gun it.”

Another who gunned it was Sunday’s high scorer, Gloria Kahlden. 

Kahlden (3 firsts, 5 seconds) ran off seven straight cashes at one point to bag the $10,139 up-top money in Sunday’s HT Tour event, our $20,000 Gtd. game, which closed with a final pot of $22,531.

Gary Brous (5 wins, 2 places) hit Gun it, but he needed to sweep the final three contest races to get where he wanted to be.

That hoped-for destination was the top of the leaderboard in Sunday’s Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship leaderboard.

Gregory Lewis did Brous one better in a sense. Lewis played Gun It early, then later nailed the final four race winners.

Lewis earned the $1,500 entry in Sunday’s Houston Betting Championship qualifier.

Perhaps conspicuous by its absence up to this point is any mention of last week’s NHC Last Chance/First Chance qualifiers. They really kicked into overdrive last week, and judging from your response, many of you must have been thinking, “What took you guys so long?”

At any rate, there were 15 separate Last Chance/First Chance qualifiers that took place during the period from December 26-29. From those 15 play-ins, 53 entries were awarded at $500 per pop. 

In the interest of brevity, here is a rundown of all the $500 seats won each day:

Thursday: Stephen McNatton, Christopher Olsson (2 seats), James Lisowsky (also 2 seats), Chris Michaels, Robin Buser, Stephen Thompson, Mark Elliott, Brandon Leigh, Charley Witt, Mark Stillmock, Jeff Sandler and reigning NHC champ Mike Gillum.

Friday: Eliot Honaker, 2018 NHC champ Chris Littlemore, Jeff Bussan, Carolyn Jack, Martin Scaminaci, Mike Steindler, Greg Knepper, Brett Wiener, Joe Davidson, Stephan Gravina, Troy Johnson, Jimmie O’Nail and Mark Stillmock.

Saturday: Brian Kubik, David Nelson, John Behnke, Rob Ramirez, Kirk Rockwell, Rafael Lopez, Devanathan Murugesan, Terry Jerge, Nick Noce, Chris Littlemore, Mark Stillmock (2 seats) and Robert Bertolotti

Sunday: Stephen Diaz, Charley Witt, George Bosch, Steven Nichols, Gregory Lewis, Kevin Engelhard, Larry St. Andrie, Kirk Rockwell, Steve Taracks, Anthony Spinazzola, Michael Tomatz and John Gaspar.

There’s still plenty of time (two and a half months) to win a seat—or even a fourth seat—to this NHC Eve competition that threatens to dwarf (entry count-wise) the main event, itself. And, yes, players can have up to four entries in the Last Chance/First Chance event.

In the meantime, we wish all of you a happy and safe New Year’s Eve, and a healthy and prosperous 2025.