On Sunday night, the drinks were on Tory Cameron. 

The 49-year-old bartender from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., put together the third-best score on Saturday’s Day 1 and the sixth-highest on Sunday’s Day 2 to earn the $117,115 grand prize in the 7th annual Flo-Cal Faceoff — a $200,000 Guaranteed tournament at HorseTourneys that required participants to make mythical $2 win-and-place selections for every race of the Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita Park cards on Saturday, January 31 and Sunday, February 1. The final, all-cash prize pool for event settled at $325,499.

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n addition to his six-figure first prize, Cameron collected $2,440 as a Saturday Day Money bonus for finishing the day in 3rd place. He also played a second entry in the $1,500-buy-in contest that resulted in an 11th-place overall finish. That was good for another $4,392, giving Cameron a total return of $123,947.

Along with his monetary winnings, Cameron also picked up 100 points in the HT Champions Series for his victory. In each of the five Champions Series competitions—the Flo-Cal Faceoff, April’s Players Championship, the New York, New York Challenge in June, August’s Spa & Surf Showdown and the Pick & Pray Classic in December—the top 100 finishers receive points based on their finish. (Only a player’s highest score earns points if he or she plays multiple entries.) The first-place finisher receives 100 points, the runner up gets 99 points, and so on…down to 1 point for the 100th-place contestant. The top points-earner at the end of the series earns entries into all five 2027 Champions Series events. The runner up receives any three seats of his or her choosing. The third-place finisher gets to pick one seat.

The two days of the 2026 Flo-Cal Faceoff had decidedly different feels. There were a few good prices out there on Sunday. On the opening day…not so much.

If you wanted to make hay, the best time to do it on Saturday was very early on. That’s what William Claunch did.

Claunch came out smoking, nailing 11-1 and 9-2 winners right from the get-go, then adding a double-digit place payoff and three more collections right after that. As things turned out, that opening 11-1 winner, Miss Brunellas in the 1st at Gulfstream, was the biggest price all day. The Bill Mott trainee paid $24.80 to win and $11.00 to place. 

So Claunch had the early lead—and he held it virtually start to finish on Saturday.

Claunch pocketed an $8,133 Day Money prize for amassing the highest Saturday score. Only a couple of bucks behind him was Rob Henie, who received a $4,880 bonus. Then came Tory Cameron. Finishing Saturday in fourth position was Jeff Bussan, who banked the final Saturday Day Money award, $813.

Because Saturday featured no big cap horses, the end-of-day-one leaderboard was more bunched up than usual. A relatively small $41.60 separated 1st place and 38th place in the 249-entry field. 

On Sunday, it was Cameron, who started out hot. He hit two winners followed by two runners up to begin the day, and he now had the lead. Claunch, however, scored with a 7-2 winner in the 5th at Gulfstream and grabbed the lead right back from Cameron.

There was now a seesaw battle going on. But soon, other kids would enter the playground.

When Mario’s Sweet Girl took the 6th at Gulfstream as the longest shot in the field (33-1), you knew it would shake up the leaderboard.

Or would it?

Plenty of people had Mario’s Sweet Girl…just no one near the top of the standings. You had to go to “Page 2” of the standings and drill all the way down to 77th place on the leaderboard to find someone with the bomb. That was Tyler Okasaki, who was now suddenly up into third. Sadly for Okasaki, that was the final winner he had all day, and he wound up in 35th place. 

The next-highest person to use Mario’s Sweet Girl was Ken Jordan down in 93rd place. He was now in fifth place…and he would not go away so quietly.

In the six races after his big hit with Mario’s Sweet Girl, Jordan enjoyed $14.80 and $13.80 winners plus two place collections, the last one of which paid $11.60. The lead now belonged to him, and there were only five races remaining, all at Santa Anita.

Two races later, though, the seesaw was back in operation. When Surfin’ U.S.A. ($10.00, $7.60) prevailed in the 5th at Santa Anita, Claunch was back in front. 

Tory Cameron, meanwhile, had seemingly fallen on hard times. After his four consecutive cashes to begin the day—and to take the lead—the bartender may have found himself singing tales of woe rather than listening to those of his customers. He had just one 5-2 winner and three small place collections to show for his last 10 picks, and he was now down to sixth place.

Cameron needed some sort of restorative, and he came up with a decent one when second-choice Windribbon captured the 6th at Santa Anita at odds of 5-2. 

The problem for Cameron was that Ken Jordan also had Windribbon. So did Michael Herrington just in front of Cameron. And leader William Claunch had made a small place collection in the same race. For Cameron, mired in sixth position, there was still plenty of work to be done—and now only two races left in which to do it.

The 7th at Santa Anita, the next-to-last race of the contest, was a 5 1/2 furlong-sprint for 3-year-old fillies running for a tag of $20,000. As the horses sprung from the starting gate, a quick refresh of the leaderboard revealed that Cameron had opted for Little Tinker Elle, a speedy winner of her last two—but those two came in nighttime “hook races” at Los Alamitos. 

Could Little Tinker Elle’s LosAl nighttime form hold up in the afternoon at The Great Race Place?

It could.

After a lengthy Sunday hiatus, Cameron was now back in first place. His lead was $17.70 over William Claunch.

In the final contest heat, race 8 at Santa Anita, Cameron settled on 6-1 shot Rizzleberry Road.

Much like Little Tinker Elle a half hour earlier, Rizzleberry Road won in wire-to-wire fashion. Victory—and the $117,115 first prize—belonged to Tory Cameron. 

With the benefit of hindsight, the Rizzleberry Road triumph was somewhat academic—in that no one close enough to threaten Cameron had chosen the Peter Eurton runner. However, Rizzleberry Road’s triumph certainly put an emphatic exclamation point on Cameron’s Flo-Cal Faceoff perfomance—which, of course, ended with three crucial winners, not one of which was favored.

Here’s a look at who finished “in the money” in the two-day, overall standings…as well as the four who earned Day Money bonuses for turning in the best performances on Sunday.

William Claunch and Ken Jordan, who spent a good bit of Sunday alternating on the Flo-Cal lead, finished 2nd and 3rd, respectively. Claunch bagged $46,846, while Jordan took home $23,423.

Brian Flynn collected $17,567 for reporting home in 4th position. William Holobowski checked in 5th and was rewarded with $14,639. 

Peter Kovic ($13,175), Linda Rodriguez ($11,711), Rob Henie ($10,248), Michael Herrington ($7,320) and Jeff Bussan ($5,856) rounded out the top 10. 

After a so-so Day 1, Ken Jordan was shot out of a cannon on Sunday. He got the top Sunday Day Money prize of $8,133. That brought him to a total of $31,556 for the Flo-Cal. The three next best efforts on Sunday were turned in by Kevin Walsh ($4,880 bonus), Michael Herrington ($2,440 bonus and $9,760 overall) and Peter Behr ($813 in Day Money, $5,205 total). 

It is interesting to note that, 24 hours after recording the third-highest Day 1 score, Cameron posted the 6th best score on Day 2 with his winning entry—and the 7th best Sunday score with his “bad” entry! As mentoned near the top, that second entry finished in the money in 11th place.

Indeed, it was quite a weekend for Tory Cameron. Come back to this space on Wednesday, and we’ll learn more about the 2026 Flo-Cal Faceoff champion and what went into his unforgettable two days.