NHC champions…NHC Hall of Famers…HorseTourneys “major” winners…you’ll find all of them on the leaderboards in any given week here—and they certainly had plenty of great moments here last week. The player who outdid them all, however, was Jose Giron.

If that sounds familiar, it is with good reason. In last Monday’s recap, Giron made the headline for bagging New York New York Challenge, Preakness Challenge and Monmouth Pick Your Prize seats. This past Saturday, Giron did way better than that.

Thanks to a 4-win, 3-place performance that included the day’s biggest price—My Boy Star ($18.20, $6.80) in the first contest race, the 7th at Gulfstream–Giron won himself a second entry to all three of the aforementioned tournaments. Giron finished behind fellow My Boy Star fan Justin Rustvold (4 wins, 0 places) and ahead of Jason Albano (3W, 3P) and 2023 Spa & Surf Showdown victor Anthony Spinazzola in the four-seat New York New York Challenge qualifier. Giron took a backseat to no one in the Preakness Challenge and Monmouth Pick Your Prize play-ins. That Monmouth qualifier also saw the other two players to reach the $70.00 mark get a $2,000 berth for June 13. Congrats to My Boy Star backers Paul Sabatino (6 wins, 1 place) and John Vail (5W, 2P).

Of course, the above paragraph would only make Giron’s success equal to that of the previous week. We told you, though, that this week was much better.

That’s because he also finished first in Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers and third in what turned out to be a three-seat, $155 NHC qualifier at the same cybervenue. In the NHC game, My Boy Star fans Rick Vasquez (5 wins, 2 places) and Michael Achilarre (4W, 2P) ran one-two and also punched their tickets to Vegas.

As for Giron, that made eight seats (approximate value: $25,000) in two weeks. However, he wasn’t the only player who put two excellent weeks back to back.

Last Monday, loyal “Weekly Recap” subscribers read about the exploits of 2023 Flo-Cal Faceoff champ David Wolff and his capturing of both the Thursday and Sunday cash features. This week all you paid-up readers in good standing can now learn of him corralling two much sought-after seats—one to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge in a Friday Low Ratio affair at HorsePlayers and the other to the NHC in the same day’s $70 qualifier there. Wolff’s big horse among 4 winners and 1 runner up was Flat to Da Mat ($21.08, $9.32) in the 7th at Aqueduct. Dr. Ronald Tang finished 2nd behind Wolff in the BCBC get-together and earned a $5,000 partial entry. (Spoiler alert: Tang had an even better day on Sunday.) In the NHC qualifier, there were five seats at stake. Fourth-place finisher Dave “Gambling Actuary” Nichols was already double-qualified, though. (Hey, it HAS been a month since the last NHC. Surprised it took him that long!) So the five Vegas packages went to recent NHC Hall of Fame inductee Kevin Engelhard (1st place), William McMillan (2nd), Wolff (3rd), John Fasola (5th) and 2007 NHC champion (and NHC Hall of Famer) Stanley Bavlish. Their scoring totals all hit the accelerator with Flat to Da Mat.

Engelhard led the way with a score of $86.92. Two days earlier, he managed just $46.14…but that worked out just fine for him in Wednesday’s New York New York Challenge qualifier. 

Engelhard (3 wins, 3 places) finished third best among four $1,500 seat winners. Showing the way was Jamey Gjetley, whose 5 wins and 1 place included both of the day’s double-digit win-payoff horses—Lovely Emma ($17.06, $7.54) in the 6th at Keeneland and Vermelho ($10.50, $5.76) in race 8 at the Lexington, Ky., oval. Christopher Olsson (2W, 3P) also had both Wednesday “bombs”, and he finished second. Richard Seidl (3W, 3P) got fourth by 12 cents—and that deprived Kevin Engelhard of a second New York New York Challenge entry in this game.

Meanwhile, Christopher Olsson copied and pasted his New York New York Challenge picks into his Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier entry.

Olsson got the top spot here. Runner up Bronson Cambra (4 wins, 3 places) also obtained a $2,000 Monmouth entry. Lovely Emma at the outset was key for Cambra.

Like Olsson, Cambra also parlayed one set of 10 selections into two contest seats.

Cambra topped the leaderboard in Wednesday’s Preakness Challenge leaderboard.

We mentioned that Wednesday was a rather chalky day with only two winners going off as high as 4-1. Todd Carmody had neither of those winners. Poor guy. Better luck next time!

Hang on. We’re now being told that while Carmody overlooked Lovely Emma and Vermelho, he didn’t overlook much else. Carmody made collections (5 wins, 5 places) in all 10 contest races, and that got him the up-top money of $3,888 in Friday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash tourney, which closed with a final purse of $8,640. Carmody’s noteworthy performance is a reminder that there is almost always more than one way to skin a cat here at HorseTourneys.

Eric “Skeet” Boyd has certainly recorded victories in a number of different ways here at HorseTourneys. Our 2024 HT Tour champion added another to his curriculum vitae by cashing for $4,285 in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which paid out a total of $10,714.

Boyd nailed Raydar Control ($39.00, $18.60) early in the day in the 7th at Gulfstream. His last of four Thursday winners came at the end with Miss Pharaoh ($19.96, $7.60) in the 9th at Keeneland.

Raydar Control did not evade the detection of Gary Blair (3 wins, 1 place), Geoffrey Schutt (3W, 1P) or Eldon Stivers (3W, 3P).

Those three picked up the available $1,500 entries in Thursday’s qualifier to the $200,000 Gtd. New York New York Challenge here on June 5-6. The New York New York Challenge serves as Leg 3 in the five-leg 2026 HT Champions Series. (Seats to all five 2027 Champions Series events await the overall points leader at the end of the series. Bonuses are also in store for the second- and third-place Series finishers.)

NHC Hall of Famer Brett Wiener (3 wins, 1 place) and 2023 HT Tour champ Ed Peters (2W, 1P) ran one-two in Friday’s Preakness Challenge qualifier.

The best return for each was provided by 9-1 Flat to Da Mat in the 7th at Aqueduct.

Utilizing the same selections, Wiener and Peters also made up the “exacta” in Friday’s Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier.

In this one, there were enough entries for the “show horse” to also realize a big return. That honor went to NHC Hall of Fame member Paul Shurman (5W, 0P). Shurman’s best pick was On a Summer Day ($12.82, $6.86) in the 8th at the Big A.

Jamey Gjetley grabbed his second New York New York Challenge seat of the week on Friday.

Forty-eight hours after finishing first in Wednesday’s “NYNYC” play-in, Gjetley (4 wins, 0 places) came home second in Friday’s three-seater. He and fellow Flat to Da Mat supporters G.T. Nixon (3W, 2P) and Peter Kizenko (3W, 1P) also came away with $1,500 seats. Kizenko, it may be interesting to note, did all of his scoring over the final five races of the 10-race contest. 

Troy Robertson (5 wins, 4 places) nearly pulled off a “Todd Carmody”. Robertson made collections in every race of Friday’s $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray except for the final one. 

Robertson banked $11,021 in this HT Tour battle that closed with a final purse of $24,493. He, too, floored it with Flat to Da Mat.

Our richest game of the week was Saturday’s $25,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray. This HT Tour event closed with a final prize pool of $34,143.

The biggest beneficiary of the largesse was Andre Zarbcousin, who picked 8 winners out of 12 races, and those 8 came during the final 9 contest heats. His best hit came at the end in the Royal Heroine Stakes at Santa Anita when Take a Breath ($11.20, $5.60) was the winner. Zarbcousin’s grand prize amounted to $15,364. Tres bien!

The day’s other cash feature was our $10,177 Big Bucks Pick & Pray.

Evan Trommer put up 7 wins and a place to take down the $7,124 first prize. Slow and steady won the race for Trommer. His highest single return came from Bramito ($6.58, $3.38) in race 6 at Aqueduct.

Sticking with the cash-game theme, Dr. Ronald Tang (4 wins, 3 places) scooped up the $14,273 top prize in Sunday’s $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed its doors with $31,718 in the kitty.

Tang smoked out both of the day’s top prices—Las Olas ($22.40, $5.80) in the 7th at Gulfstream and Prince Dolce ($31.00, $11.20) in race 3 at Santa Anita.

Dr. Tang played mostly the same picks in Sunday’s Preakness Challenge qualifier.

He lost a place collection somewhere along the way between the cash game and this one, but he still managed to pick up a $1,500 place in the May 16 competition.

On Sunday, we offered our first qualifier to the July 25-26 Del Mar Summer Challenge.

The winner of the hefty $6,000 berth was 2011 NHC champion John Doyle, who put up 5 winners (including Las Olas) plus 2 runners up.

Another Sunday IPO (initial play-in opportunity) was our qualifier to the May 25 Lone Star Million Betting Challenge.

Ray Barnes (5 wins, 0 places) and William “23” Sadoo (4W, 0P) were the $2,500 entry winners when the shootin’ in this Texas shootout died down. They each came up with both Las Olas and Prince Dolce.

Sadoo fired the same shots in Sunday’s New York New York Challenge qualifier.

Sadoo placed third in what turned out to be a four-seater. Atop the leaderboard was Peter Osella (5 wins, 3 places) with Joe Migliore (5W, 1P) not far behind. Fourth place went to Michael Sussman, who had 3 places followed by 4 winners. All four connected on Prince Dolce.

Terrence Frank and Jeff Bussan also shared an appreciation for Prince Dolce.

Frank (4 wins, 3 places) and Bussan (4W, 1P) were the only two players in Sunday’s Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier to crack the century mark, and they garnered the two available $2,000 entries.

Over at HorsePlayers, Las Olas was the heaviest lifter for 2022 champion Tim Hughes (4 firsts, 5 seconds).

Hughes took the $10,000 berth in Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier. Another past Spa & Surf Showdown winner, 2023 hero Anthony Spinazzola, landed in the second spot, and he received a $5,000 partial BCBC entry for his efforts.

There was also a $195 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers on Sunday. It wound up awarding three Vegas spots.

Congrats to Prince Dolce choosers James Hansen (5 wins, 1 place), Chris “Army Strong” Lavezza (3W, 2P) and David Barnier (3W, 2P). Barnier just had a measly $6.14 place collection to show for his first seven selections, but he generated 4 wins and a place from the final five races, and now he’s headed to Vegas. 

As most of you know, we are not allowed to offer any tourneys on Churchill Downs races, but we’ll still have a full slate of cash games and qualifiers to important events during the weekend ahead. One of our offerings—on Sunday—is a new one.

It’s a $5,000 Guaranteed “All Optional Live” cash tourney that we’ll be running a couple of times per month. The format is similar to the one that was used in the recently concluded Players Championship. You will be given 25 races to choose from, and, from those, you make 10 plays. It certainly adds an element of strategy to the proceedings. Hope to see you there.

Good luck to all…and enjoy the Derby!