In third place—trailing by nearly $28.00 with just two races to go and only one pick remaining—Derek Isenberg of Haddon Heights, N.J. fired his last bullet on 18-1 Spirited Boss in the six-horse Monrovia Stakes at Santa Anita. When the turning-back-in-distance filly got up late to win the down-the-hill turf sprint by three-quarters of a length—and when the 2-5 race favorite could do no better than third—Isenberg received $38.00 to win and a robust $19.80 to place, boosting him into first place of the two-day Players Championship with $281.38.

As it turned out, Isenberg wasn’t out of the woods yet. He now led by $29.84, but 14-1 Peppermint Dash wound up taking the nightcap. No one within range opted for the Richard Baltas-trained first-time starter, however, and the sixth annual Players Championship belonged to Isenberg. He collected the first-place prize of $120,407 plus an additional $5,016 for having the second-best score on Day 2 among the 192 entrants. 

The Players Championship—the second leg of the 2026 HT Champions Series, to be followed by the New York, New York Challenge on June 5-6, the Spa & Surf Showdown in August and the Pick & Pray Classic in December—carried a $2,000 buy-in and required players to make 15 mythical $2.00 win-and-place picks each day from among 30 available contest races. On Friday, April 3, the track menu consisted of the full cards from Aqueduct, Keeneland and Santa Anita, plus a few races from Gulfstream. On Saturday the 4th, selected races from Aqueduct, Keeneland and Santa Anita made up the 30.

At the conclusion of Day 1 on Friday, Isenberg found himself in 11th place. There weren’t a whole lot of giant prices out there during the day. Isenberg’s most productive pick was A Bourbon for Toby ($25.06, $11.68) in the 6th at Keeneland.

Leading the proceedings after Friday’s action was a different Philadelphia-area contest player, Jim Cuzzupe.

Cuzzupe struggled on Saturday, but managed to finish in 14th place overall, which was good for $3,010. His cause was not helped by the fact that two or three of his second-place runners on Saturday got nailed at the wire by late-charging closers.

That said, Cuzzupe was amply rewarded for his Friday acumen—and not just because of the $8,361 Day Money bonus he earned for having the top score on the first day of the Players Championship. 

Cuzzupe played several other tourneys on Friday, and, happily for him, many of his best selections came in races that were also part of the 10-race Friday featured schedule. When the weekend dust had settled, Cuzzupe had won not just the $11,371 in Players Championship cash, but another $7,893 for taking Friday’s HT Tour cash feature, plus seats to the NHC, Keeneland Grade One Gamble and Monmouth Pick Your Prize tournament. All together, it was about a $33,000 weekend for Cuzzupe.

Getting back to Derek Isenberg…as crucial as that final pick of Spirited Boss was for him, it might not have been his most momentous point in the Players Championship. That may well have occurred three and a half hours earlier.

Early on Day 2, Isenberg did little to suggest that he would come away with any money in the Players Championship, let alone win it. His first six plays had yielded just a pair of modest place collections. Oh well. It’s always hard to put two good days back-to-back…

And then suddenly…almost miraculously…everything changed.

Six-race fields at Santa Anita seem to be something of a specialty for Derek Isenberg—because that’s where, in the Echo Eddie Stakes at 4:40 pm ET, he found Fionello, who came from last to win by a nose at 18-1. 

Before that race had even gone official, though, Isenberg had to turn his attention to the 8th at Keeneland where he had Storm’s Wake in the Appalachian Stakes.

Now, after two races that went off five minutes apart, Isenberg wasn’t merely back in contention in the Players Championship…he was leading the damn thing.

The rest of Saturday was a dog fight with it looking, at any given time, like Isenberg, Hayden Leibrock and James Henry were all about equally likely to walk away with the title.

Never was this more the case than with just seven races left to go.

Just 24 cents separated the top three.

Another ironic sight appeared on the leaderboard right at this point. Look at the top 10. There was Frank Polk in 6th and Dylan Donnelly in 9th. Does that one ring a bell? Exactly three weeks earlier, the same two were battling it out at the NHC Final Table with Donnelly pulling off an unlikely comeback in the final race to wrest the NHC crown from Polk. Could the same thing possibly happen here? Might Polk instead gain a measure of revenge on Donnelly? How amazing was it that the stars had even aligned for such a thing to be possible for a second time in less than a month?

Alas, Polk and Donnelly finished in 18th and 28th, respectively. They’ll always have Vegas, though.

And thanks to the biggest five minutes of his horseplaying life…followed by Spirited Boss in the Monrovia Stakes…Derek Isenberg will always have the 2026 Players Championship.

Hayden Leibrock may feel like the Players Championship was “the one that got away”. He had the lead until Isenberg took it from him in the next-to-last race. And Leibrock would have still won had he somehow convinced himself to take 14-1 Peppermint Dash instead of 10-1 Daring Pursuit in the final race. Nevertheless, he can look back with great pride on his terrific runner-up performance—and the $48,163 that went with it.

Ronald Tang hit Peppermint Dash at the end. That moved him from 18th position all the way to 3rd place, which was worth $30,102. It also propelled Tang to the top of the “Day 2 only” leaderboard, which meant another $8,361 in bonus money. So that first-time starter turned out to be a $38,000 horse for Tang. 

Also, with 173 points, Tang is now the leader after two legs of the HT Champions Series.

The 2018 NHC champion, recent Hall of Fame inductee Chris Littlemore reported home in the fourth spot to earn $18,061. Onetime Sunday leader James Henry checked in 5th to pick up $15,051 plus another $2,508 for having the third best Saturday score.

William Sadoo ($13,546 + $836 Day 2 bonus), 2024 Pick & Pray Classic champ Mark Stillmock ($12,041), Mark Aylward ($10,536), John O’Brien ($7,525) and Ted Apple ($6,020) rounded out the top 10.

Glenn Bechtel, Scotty McKeever and Anthony Mroz each got $4,515 for finishing in 11th through 13th, respectively. Jim Cuzzupe and John Fasola completed the roster of in-the-money finishers. They bagged $3,010 each.

Many thanks to all who competed in or followed the Players Championship. Be sure to come back to this space on Wednesday afternoon. That’s when we’ll have a profile of our 2026 champion Derek Isenberg.