The final day of May was a very good one for Steven Meier. Using mostly the same set of picks, he racked up three rewarding victories.

T

he most rewarding of the three came in Saturday’s HT Tour competition, our $25,000 Guaranteed cash tourney, which closed with a final pot of $29,876. Meier came up with 5 winners—including Puckered ($29.60, $10.00) in the 10th at Gulfstream—and 1 runner up to collect the first prize of $13,444.

Meier’s score dropped slightly in Saturday’s $210 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers…

…but it was still strong enough to lead the way. The other available spot in this undersold event went to Mike Yarusso, who was the only other player to exceed the $100.00 mark. Yarusso had 7 collections in a row (including 4 winners) at one point. His best selection was Gold Strategy ($28.60, $7.20) in race 9 at Monmouth.

Meier will have the opportunity to do even more winning this coming Friday and Saturday. That as a result of having also finished first in Saturday’s multi-track New York, New York Challenge qualifier.

Joining Meier in the starting gate on Friday for the $250,000 Guaranteed, all Pick & Pray battle will be Jim Lisowsky (3W, 2P), G.T. Nixon (4W, 4P) and Nicholas Phillippides (4W, 3P). All four players had Puckered.

For Nixon, it was the second New York, New York Challenge seat won in as many days.

Nixon (3 wins, 3 places) was commander-in-chief of Friday’s qualifier to the brand new HT Champions Series event. He topped a group of four $1,500 seat winners that included Clint Littlejohn (2 wins, 1 place…all of which came in the final three contest races), James Zaccagnino (3W, 1P) and Michael Goodrich (2W, 3P). The top three all got a thrill from Scary Fast Ride ($26.60, $8.80) in the 8th at Santa Anita.

The first New York, New York Challenge qualifier of the week took place on Wednesday—when Mike Abernathy and Kevin Engelhard added their names to the roster of participants.

Abernathy (5 winners, 0 places) and Engelhard (2W, 5P) each scored with the day’s biggest price—My Devils Child ($12.80, $6.20)—which came in the final contest race, the 10th at Parx.

Glen Gottlieb (6 firsts, 2 seconds) accounted for the other Wednesday feature, our $5,000 Guaranteed cash game.

Gottlieb reeled off 4 winners in a row at one point, beginning with Ohio Joe ($12.20, $6.60) in race 6 at Parx, He bagged $2,550 from what was a final prize pool of $5,668.

On Thursday, Patrick Kennedy swept the final five contest races to finish with 6 firsts and 1 second on the day.

Kennedy’s big horse was Holy Moly Moses ($41.20, $9.80) in the 8th at Gulfstream. He finished at the top of the leaderboard in Thursday’s New York, New York Challenge qualifier, which saw Vineet Sharma (4 wins, 1 place) and Geoffrey Schutt (2W, 3P) also earn berths.

Jim Trepinski (2 wins, 2 places) also had Holy Moly Moses.

Trepinski pocketed $3,297 for taking Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which was ultimately worth a total of $7,327.

That wasn’t all the cash that Trepinski won last week.

Trepinski came back 48 hours later to triumph in Saturday’s $5,088 Big Bucks Pick & Pray. He counted Puckered among the 3 wins and 4 places that brought him a Saturday payday of $3,562.

Friday’s cash-game hero was Ronnie Henderson (6 wins, 2 places).

Henderson had winners in 5 of the first 6 contest races. Then he came back with Tavolara ($20.20, $10.20) in the 9th at Santa Anita to claim the up-top one of $8,004 in Friday’s HT Tour contest, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which paid out a total of $17,788.

Michael Caposio enjoyed a highly profitable Friday.

In addition to finishing 3rd behind Ronnie Henderson and receiving $1,778 in the cash feature, Caposio (3 firsts, 1 second) won Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio Pick & Pray. He had Tavolara in Santa Anita’s 9th…and two races earlier in Arcadia, he smoked out Harcyn ($20.80, $10.00).

Caposio also took the top spot in Friday’s play-in to the Xpressbet Canterbury Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Qualifier.

Caposio receives a $500 entry into the June 21st tilt.

Heading into this contest year, Sally Goodall and Trey Stiles shared the record of having made 23 appearances at the NHC. A couple of weeks ago, Goodall landed her 2026 seat. And this week, it was Stiles’s turn to reclaim his half of the record.

Stiles, whose 24 NHC appearances will have occurred in consecutive years dating back to 2003, finished 2nd in Friday’s three-seat, $75 qualifier at HorsePlayers. Up front was Drew Trommer, who also had 4 wins and 2 places, but his 4 winners all came at the very end. Grabbing third place was Joe Johnson (5W, 2P).

Michael Somich (2 firsts, 1 second) took home the $2,000 entry in Friday’s qualifier to the new Breeders’ Cup Pick & Pray tourney.

Somich was the only player in this one who turned a flat-bet profit. Harcyn was his best pick.

On Saturday, we hosted our weekly, guaranteed qualifier to the July 26-27 Del Mar Summer Challenge.

Puckered plus 4 other winners and 2 runners up gave Damian Roncevich the sizable $6,500 package in this one.

For Joe Perry, the key horse was Gold Strategy.

Perry (6 wins, 2 places) got the spoils at the conclusion of Saturday’s Xpressbet Canterbury Breeders’s Cup Qualifier play-in.

There was a special New York, New York Challenge qualifier contested strictly on Saturday’s full-card from Gulfstream.

Phil Hoedebeck (6 wins, 1 place) and Sean O’Malley (3W, 0P) came away with the $1,500 berths. Hoedebeck happily took responsibility for having picked Culpa ($47.60, $11.20) in race 7. O’Malley chipped up early with Secret Victory ($34.80, $17.80) in the 2nd race.

There was also a New York, New York Challenge play-in pegged to the full, Saturday card at Santa Anita.

Joseph Foulke punched his ticket to this weekend by putting up 4 winners and 2 runners up. His highest-yielding horse was Hurricane Cloud ($10.00, $4.80) in the opener at The Great Race Place.

The final Saturday tourney to recap is the $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers. It was one to remember for Emmett Burns. And one to forget for both Robert Childress and Brian O’Kane.

Leading Robert Childress by $6.40 and Emmett Burns by $18.60 going into the final race (the 6th at Santa Anita) of this Live-format affair, O’Kane selected the 2-1 second choice Vincero Grande. Childress went with #3 Shezmisbehaving who went off at 5-1. Burns opted for a different 5-1 shot, #4 Berry Valley. Shezmisbehaving had the lead in deep stretch, but Berry Valley came up the fence late and nipped her buy a nose. Vincero Grande came charging hard on the outside but finished 3rd, beaten two noses, I am not making this up.

The nightmare does not end there for Childress and O’Kane. Shezmisbehaving returned $6.40 to place, moving Childress into a tie with O’Kane. Berry Valley, meanwhile, paid $12.60 to win and $6.00 to place. Almost incredibly, Burns, Childress and O’Kane were now dead even.

Alas for Childress and O’Kane, the lost photo also meant that Burns now had 5 winners—one more than they had. Even if O’Kane’s horse had just gotten second, he would have won. But it was not to be.

And that’s how Burns picked up a $10,000 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge seat…and Childress and O’Kane wound up with $179 breakage refunds. This game can drive you crazy sometimes.

Mercifully, there was less drama in Sunday’s BCBC qualifier—a low ratio get-together at HorsePlayers.

The winner was Becky Mulligan. Her 2 wins and 2 places were highlighted by Bean Machine ($51.00, $20.40) in the 8th at Monmouth.

As things played out Bean Machine helped bring the sweet smell of success to all of Sunday’s multi-track tourney winners.

One of them was “Battlin’” Bill Smith (4 wins, 1 place), who shut out his rivals in Sunday’s play-in to the Xpressbet Canterbury BCBC Qualifier.

Bean Machine was also cranking away on the scorecards of Steven Franckowiak (2 wins, 3 places), Chip Armbruster (3W, 2P), Brian “BC” Chenvert (3W, 2P), Clint Littlejohn (2W, 1P) and Hector Ramirez (1W, 1P).

They were the five winners of $1,500 seats in Sunday’s multi-track play-in to the New York, New York Challenge. In another tight battle/tough beat, Ramirez got the nod for 5th via tiebreaker over Anthony Laurino who had the same winner and same runner up as Ramirez. Show runners turned out to be the deciding factor and Ramirez had three of those compared to one for Laurino.

Terrence Frank was Sunday’s top scorer. He had Bean Machine early, then finished strong with four straight winners at the end.

Frank got an NHC berth in Sunday’s $165 Pick & Pray at HorsePlayers. So did runner up—and fellow Bean Machine backer—Brian Flynn (5 wins, 3 places).

Bean Machine smelled like money to Kevin Harrell (5 firsts, 3 seconds).

Harrell banked the top prize of $10,139 in Sunday HT Tour test, our $20,000 Guaranteed cash tourney, which closed with a final pot of $22,531. Harrell’s share of that came to $10,139.

Bean Machine was not a factor in the two single-track New York, New York Challenge qualifiers—because one was on Gulfstream and the other focused on Santa Anita.

Mark “Santana” Tabakman (3 wins, 2 places) and Kirk Rockwell (5W, 2P) graduated with honors, and prizes, from the Gulfstream contest. Tabakman’s most rewarding selection was El Muchacho Alegre ($15.60, $4.60) in race 4. Rockwell chipped away more gradually. His biggest win price was $7.00/

In the Santa Anita-only qualifier, the 2013 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge champion Peter Behr (4 wins, 2 places) and Mark “El” Kapitan (3W, 2P) earned the $1,500 spots. The best return for both came via Thirty Two Chunk ($6.80, $4.60) in race 3.

We’ll have another wide array of featured tourneys starting this Wednesday. Though the main spotlight will be on the inaugural New York, New York Challenge here on Friday and Saturday. Contestants will be making full-card, Pick & Pray selections on the Friday and Saturday cards of the Belmont Stakes Festival taking place at Saratoga. Qualifiers will continue through Thursday, and $1,500 buy-ins to the $250,000 Guaranteed tourney will remain open right up until first post on Friday. Note, however, that Friday’s first post is an early one—11:40 am ET. So, especially if you live on the West Coast, do not oversleep on Friday (or Saturday when first post is 10:45 am ET).

Whether you play in the New York, New York Challenge this week or in one or two of our $2 games, we wish you good luck, good fun…and no bad beats.