It has been quite a run of late for Dave “Gambling Actuary” Nichols. In 2025, he won the HorseTourneys Tour and also the far-less-challenging NHC Tour. (I’m kidding about the far-less-challenging part.) Last week, the Pennsylvania resident was up to his old tricks.

Sixth in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, Nichols assured himself an opportunity to better that placing in 2026 by taking Friday’s Low Ratio BCBC qualifier thanks to 3 wins and 2 places that were highlighted by Keeneland race 6 cap horse Ring Curl ($93.00, $34.30). Tommy Gambrell picked up a $5,000 partial BCBC entry for finishing closest to Nichols. 

Those same selections also served Nichols well in Friday’s Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier.

Peter James (5 firsts, 1 second) hit Royally Blue ($16.80, $7.80) in the 8th at Gulfstream to help him finish second. That will earn James a paid-up rematch with Nichols in the Monmouth contest on June 13.

The $200,000 Gtd. New York New York Challenge here on June 5-6? Nichols will be in that one too.

So will Ring Curl supporter Rafael Lopez (3 wins, 2 places), Ronald Tang (3W, 1P), Jason Phillips (3W, 1P) and G.T. Nixon (3W, 1P), who finished 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th, respectively. The heaviest lifter for Tang, Phillips and Nixon was Free Advice ($32.88, $9.90) in the final contest race, the 10th at Keeneland.

Somehow Nichols was outdone in Friday’s Preakness Preview Day Challenge qualifier, but he didn’t go home from that one empty handed.

Nichols bested all except Christopher Olson (3 firsts, 3 seconds), who benefited from some Free Advice. G.T. Nixon also got a $500 spot for checking in third.

What a day…four seats worth a combined $14,000. For Nichols, though, it was just an appetizer. That’s because the very next day, Nichols cleared about $100,000 for finishing first in the Keeneland Grade One Gamble. Incredible.

For the record, it should be noted that on Thursday of this past week, Nichols won a Grade One Gamble entry—undoubtedly his winning one—right here at HorseTourneys.

NHC Hall of Famer Brett Wiener also acquitted himself quite well in the Grade One Gamble, reporting home in ninth position. While he was at it, he also managed to grab himself a Monmouth Pick Your Prize entry.

Wiener was in the vanguard by having bomb Trendsetter ($66.68, $19.12) in the Lexington Stakes as one of his two winners on the day. Runner up Larry Smitley (4 wins, 2 places) got the other available $2,000 berth. Smitley was smitten with Magical Factor ($19.18, $6.98) in the opening contest heat, the 5th at Keeneland.

As for Wiener, it’s possible he now wishes that the Keeneland Grade One Gamble had been on Sunday instead of Saturday. Had that been the case, he might have done even better.

Wiener put together 4 wins and 5 places to take Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier. His most lucrative selection was In Our Time ($12.88, $6.84) in the 7th at Keeneland. Brendan Fay, the winner of the 2023 The BIG One, received a $5,000 partial BCBC entry for being second best.

The same Sunday picks also landed Wiener in the top spot in our first qualifier to the May 18 Preakness Challenge. 

Wiener got a $1,500 seat for that result—and another $1,500 entry for leading the way in Sunday’s qualifier to the New York New York Challenge (the third leg of the 2026 HT Champions Series).

In all, five seats were awarded in this play-in. The other four went to Jason Alonzo (7 wins, 1 place), 2024 Pick & Pray Classic champ Mark Stillmock (1W, 4P), last year’s Spa & Surf Showdown winner John “The Clocker” Nichols (5W, 1P) and In Our Time backer David Barnier (6W, 0P). Alonzo, Stillmock and Nichols all scored with Mezcalifornia ($15.16, $6.84) in race 6 at Aqueduct.

The featured-tourney week got off to a chalky start on Wednesday when the top winner across our 10 races paid just $6.74. That didn’t stop Todd Carmody.

Carmody (8 firsts, 2 seconds) made collections in every single race! He didn’t even have that $6.74 horse. His top winner returned $6.58…but when you never miss, you’re hard to beat. Carmody pocketed $3,639 for taking Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash game, which closed with a final purse of $8,087.

There was also a Preakness Preview Day Challenge qualifier on Wednesday.

The two $500 seat winners were Jimmy “Little Tex” Cosenza (5 wins, 2 places) and Mitch Schuman (5W, 3P). For Cosenza, the Preakness Preview seat is all well and good. He’ll handle himself just fine in Maryland. That’s not where he is most at home, though. His true milieu is down in the Lone Star State.

The Eastchester, N.Y., native will be pressing his jeans, polishing up his biggest belt buckle and getting his favorite cowboy boots and 10-gallon hat out of the closet this week after he swept the Friday and Saturday qualifiers to the Lone Star Spring Betting Challenge. On Friday, he did all his scoring (4 wins, 3 places) in the final seven contest races, including a 7-1 hit with Royally Blue in the 8th at Gulfstream. On Saturday, Cosenza (5 firsts, 1 second) got his Texas-sized return from Always Ready ($23.80, $11.00) in the race 9 at the Hallandale Beach, Fla., oval.

Hopping back to Thursday action, Kris Andaur nailed the last three contest-race winners to finish with 6 wins and 1 place on the day. That final winner was a doozy—Carol’s Melody ($173.40, $37.74) in the 9th at Keeneland.

Andaur took home $4,137 in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which had a final pot of $9,193.

Friday’s cash-game star was recent NHC top-10 finisher Ken Jordan.

Jordan reeled off four consecutive winners at the end, concluding with 15-1 Free Advice. All together, he had 6 winners, and that got him home first in Friday’s HT Tour battle, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which was ultimately worth a total of $23,168. Jordan’s share of that amounted to $10,425.

On Friday, Jordan also earned himself another go at the NHC.

The day’s $70 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers was a little crazy. There was a lot to unpack. There were five seats on the line. Tim Downs had cap horse Ring Curl plus 2 other winners and 2 runners up to lead the way. Jordan was second…and also third. NTRA rules, however, prohibit a player from winning more than one seat in any given competition. Finishing fourth was Dave Nichols, but he was already double-qualified. So that left the three remaining seats to 5th, 6th and 7th place contestants Rafael Lopez (3W, 2P), John Gaspar (2W, 3P) and James Aspenleiter (3W, 2P). Aspenleiter got that fifth and final seat by a grand total of two cents…over an unfortunate Paul Napoli.

Our richest tourney of the week was Saturday’s $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray (an HT Tour event). It had a final purse of $36,547.

The winner—of $16,646—was John O’Brien, whose big horse among 3 wins and 2 places was 32-1 Trendsetter in the Coolmore Lexington Stakes at Keeneland.

There were three winners of $500 entries in Saturday’s Preakness Preview Day Challenge qualifier.

Congratulations—and good luck this Saturday—to William McMillan (3 wins, 1 place), James Michael (5W, 2P) and Howard Johnson (5W, 1P). McMillan nailed Trendsetter. Michael and Johnson both connected on 10-1 Always Ready.

Howard Welsh put up 6 wins and a place during the first seven contest races on Saturday. Having done that, he could afford to whiff on the final three races.

Welsh garnered the up-top money of $3,562 in Saturday’s $5,088 Big Bucks Pick & Pray. His most productive pick was his first pick—8-1 Magical Factor in the 5th at Keeneland.

Geoffrey Schutt (2 wins, 3 places), Joe Jarvie (4W, 4P) and Steven Wells (5W, 3P) came away with the Vegas packages at the conclusion of Saturday’s $155 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. 

Schutt and Jarvie strayed from conventional wisdom by picking Trendsetter. The best play from Wells was Always Ready.

Using the same selections, Schutt also reeled in one of the four available entries in Saturday’s New York New York Challenge qualifier.

Schutt finished behind A.J. Benton (5 wins, 3 places) and R. Paul Capone (4W, 2P) and ahead of Jason Alonzo (4W, 3P) in this “four seater”. For Alonzo, it would be the first of two straight days winning a New York New York Challenge entry. Earlier, we mentioned that he had gotten one for finishing close behind Brett Wiener in Sunday’s play-in to the $200,000 Gtd., two-day, all Pick & Pray tourney.

John Stettin blazed his own trail on Saturday with Trendsetter.

Stettin (4 firsts, 2 seconds) got a low-cost Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge seat in Saturday’s $179 qualifier at HorsePlayers.

Our 2023 HT Tour champion Ed Peters took home the bread on Sunday.

Peters (2 firsts, 4 seconds) counted Mezcalifornia ($15.16, $6.84) in the 6th at Aqueduct as his best winner. However, the Granite Stater also enjoyed two lucrative place collections. He got a capped $22.00 for the second-place performance by 41-1 Swashbuckle in the 8th at Gulfstream and $21.16 from Creed’s Gold, who ran 2nd at 28-1 in the 7th at Keeneland.

That race 7 at Keeneland was key in Sunday’s Lone Star Spring Betting Challenge qualifier.

The best return for first-place finisher Gady Page (6 wins, 3 places) came courtesy of Creed’s Gold. Meanwhile, runner up and fellow $1,500 seat winner Ray Barnes (5W, 2P) had the winner of that Keeneland race 7—In Our Time ($12.88, $6.84).

Sunday’s $500 NHC Low Ratio qualifier attracted a whopping 74 entries—enough for four tickets to be punched to Vegas.

The four spots went to Benjamin “Two weeks” Severance (6 wins, 1 place), Kirby “Feeling no” Pain (3W, 4P), 2016 NHC champion Paul Matties Jr. (7W, 0P) and Terrence Severson (6W, 1P). Severance and Pain could not lay off In Our Time. Matties and Severson each hit Mezcalifornia.

Severson also picked himself up a $2,000 Monmouth Pick Your Prize entry on Sunday.

Severson led a group of three entry winners that included Brendan Fay (5 wins, 2 places) and Kevin Willett (4W, 4P). Fay played In Our Time. Willett got his best return from To the Eastside ($10.00, $6.00) in race 8 at Gulfstream.

Fay also bagged a $500 berth for coming in third in Sunday’s four-seat Preakness Preview Day Challenge qualifier.

Runner up Creed’s Gold was the best return of the day for first-place finisher William Holobowski (3 wins, 4 places). Next in line was inaugural Breeders’ Cup Pick & Pray champion Earl Pratt (3W, 3P), who enjoyed the place payoffs of Creed’s Gold and Swashbuckle. In fourth was Jason Phillips, who had Mezcalifornia plus 3 other winners and 3 runners up.

Thanks to all for a robust week of action. The week ahead will present your final opportunities to qualify for the Preakness Preview Day and Lone Star Spring Betting Challenges. Good luck to all HorseTourneys qualifiers who will be taking part in those two contests on Saturday. May you have a “Dave Nichols” kind of day.