The second annual New York New York Challenge is now just four days away. On Sunday, Jayson “Radio City” Rockett ensured that he’ll be part of the $200,000 Guaranteed event that requires players to make full-card, Pick & Pray selections for the Friday and Saturday of the Belmont Stakes Racing Festival (to be held one final time this year at Saratoga).

Rockett led a group of six $1,500 seat winners in Sunday’s multi-track play-in to the “NYNYC”. His 3 wins and 4 places were topped by Summer Flower ($23.80, $5.80) in the 6th at Monmouth. The other five advancers also nailed Summer Flower. They were Stephen “Chile con” Caso (4W, 2P), Lamar “Well” Dunn (2W, 4P), John Macklin (5W, 2P) and inaugural New York New York Challenge champion Anthony “ATM” Mattera (2W, 4P). For Mattera, it was the second New York New York Challenge won in the last two weeks—so he clearly hopes to launch a staunch defense of his 2025 title.

Mattera won $115,230 in last year’s New York New York Challenge. Rockett and the other challengers would like to take that money this year. Even if Rockett does poorly this weekend, though, he won’t find himself short on funds.

Rockett played back his same New York New York Challenge qualifier selections in Sunday’s HT Tour game—our $20,000 Guaranteed cash tourney, which paid out a total of $24,062. Rockett’s winner’s share came to $10,828. 

Another player who is feeling flush these days is Kenneth Arnerich. On Saturday May 23, he pocketed $21,421 for taking both our $25,000 Guaranteed cash game and our Big Bucks Pick & Pray. He didn’t play the Big Bucks affair this past week…but he won the $25,000 Guaranteed tilt for a second straight time.

Arnerich picked 4 winners in all and 3 consecutive to begin the day. The first of those was Allison Park ($49.40, $18.80) in the 5th at Monmouth. His payday this time around amounted to $13,581 in an HT Tour event that closed with a final purse of $30,180. That gave Arnerich a two-week total haul of $35,002. Needless to say, Arnerich will be well capitalized come Belmont Stakes Weekend.

The featured-tourney week began on Wednesday—or, as we could have called it, Evan Trommer Day.

Trommer uncovered 5 Wednesday winners (from just 7 races after Horseshoe Indy canceled), highlighted by Intrepids Fantasy ($17.40, $6.40) in race 6 at Delaware. The quintet enabled Trommer to collect the $2,661 first prize in Wednesday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash tourney, which closed with a pot of $5,322. 

The same picks also delivered Trommer a $2,000 Monmouth Pick Your Prize entry…

…and a New York New York Challenge berth.

Finishing closest to Trommer—and also securing a place in the New York New York Challenge field—was Edward Enborg, who picked 4 winners…all of which came in the final four contest heats. The best of those came at the very end—Miss Chamita ($11.00, $3.80) in race 9 at Parx.

Topping the leaderboard in Thursday’s New York New York Challenge qualifier was 2024 HT Tour champ Eric “Skeet” Boyd (3 wins, 3 places).

Striking Lady ($17.00, $7.20) in the 8th at Thistledown provided Boyd with his best return. Runner up “Pistol” Pete Acocella (3W, 1P) will also be moving on to the New York New York Challenge. Acocella had Footnote ($21.40, $7.60). Appropriately, Footnote came at the end…in the 6th at Horseshoe Indy.

Eldon Stivers smoked out Striking Lady plus 4 other winners and 3 runners up.

Stivers bagged the $2,830 grand prize in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd,. Pick & Pray, which closed its doors with $6,290 in the kitty.

Friday’s cash-game hero was Jim Trepinski. 

Two of Trepinski’s four winners in Friday’s $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, an HT Tour event, were the day’s two biggest prices—Midnight Cowgirl ($19.20, $4.60) in the 5th at Santa Anita and Irish Prophet ($15.60, $6.80) one hour later in race 7 at the Arcadia, Calif., oval. Trepinski banked $9,085 in a game that was ultimately worth a total of $20,189.

Joe “Kramer vs.” Kramer (3 firsts, 2 seconds) also connected on both Midnight Cowgirl and Irish Prophet.

Kramer took home the $10,000 seat in Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayer.

Noted speedster William Wilson also had the Midnight Cowgirl-Irish Prophet “double”.

Wilson (5 wins, 3 places) led a quartet of Vegas package recipients in Friday’s $70 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. The other three were Ryan Russell (6W, 1P), Rafael Lopez (7W, 0P) and Allan Weston (5W, 3P). Russell and Weston played Irish Prophet. Lopez scored with Midnight Cowgirl.

Four players picked up $1,500 entries in Friday’s multi-track qualifier to the New York New York Challenge.

Congratulations to Aedan Hunt (5 wins, 1 place), Kevin Gillett (4W, 1P), William McKinney Jr. (3W, 2P) and, by 20 cents, Jim “Never” Settle (4W, 1P).

There was also a Friday New York New York Challenge qualifier focused strictly on the full card from Gulfstream.

Kevin Walsh (5 firsts, 1 second) came away with the $1,500 berth in this one. His biggest hit was with Blag’s Mom ($14.20, $6.20) in the opener.

Malcolm Esquerre (5 wins, 4 places) and James Giamundo (5W, 2P) each used Midnight Cowgirl as a springboard to Friday success.

They both got $2,000 seats for running one-two in Friday’s Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier.

On Saturday, three more players added their names to the roster of participants for the Pick Your Prize tournament on June 13.

The skillful trio was made up of Brandon Leigh (4 wins, 3 places), two-time NHC Tour champ Joseph “Kevin” Costello (3W, 2P) and recent NHC Hall of Fame inductee Chris Littlemore (2W, 1P). Leigh and Littlemore shared a fondness for Allison Park, the 23-1 winner of race 5 at Monmouth. Costello’s most productive pick was Neat ($21.60, $6.00) in the 7th at Monmouth.

Edward Chambers (2 wins, 3 places), last year’s Breeders’ Cup Pick & Pray champ Earl Pratt (5W, 0P), Lynn “Amazing” Grace (4W, 2P), Jeff Tracy (2W, 2P) and Richard Funaro Jr. (1W, 3P) accounted for the five seats at stake in Saturday’s multi-track qualifier to the New York New York Challenge.

All but Grace had Allison Park. Grace, however, did think that Neat was neat.

Using the same selections, Jeff Tracy took a backseat to no one in Saturday’s Lone Star Summer Betting Challenge qualifier.

Tracy received a $1,500 starting stake for the June 27 competition in the Dallas Metroplex.

Another Allison Park supporter was Drake Muir (5 wins, 2 places).

The Drake won Saturday’s $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier at HorsePlayers. Love the Drake!

Jeff Arthur (4 wins, 1 place) and 2022 NHC Tour champ Jay Johns (3W, 3P) both cheered Allison Park home at the beginning of the day.

Arthur and Johns snagged NHC berths in Saturday’s $155 qualifier at HorsePlayers.

For Peter Duca, the heavy lifter on Saturday was Third Coast ($13.60, $6.60) in race 8, the Jersey Derby, at Monmouth.

Duca scooped up the $4,274 first prize in Saturday’s $6,106 Big Bucks Pick & Pray.

Since we’re so close to the New York New York Challenge, there was a Saturday qualifier to that event that was contested just on the full card from Santa Anita.

The winner was “The People’s CFO” Joe “JK” Koury. Smile Baby Smile ($61.20, $21.60) in race 3 helped Koury Go Baby Go to a $36.60 victory in this one.

There was another Santa Anita-only, full-card New York New York Challenge play-in on Sunday.

There were two $1,500 seat winners here—Peter Osella (4 wins, 2 places) and 2018 The BIG One champ Joe Pettit (2W, 5P), who tied for first. They both backed Dainey ($10.40, $3.60) in race 6.

Sunday is the day of the week when we offer a guaranteed qualifier to the July 25-26 Del Mar Summer Challenge.

Wendy Long (2 firsts, 4 seconds) exited with the $6,500 package at the conclusion of things. Her best return came on a $15.40 place collection from Roll On Jesse, who finished 2nd in the 9th at Laurel at odds of 18-1.

There were three $2,000 entries up for grabs in Sunday’s Monmouth Pick Your Prize qualifier.

They went to Peter Kizenko (5 wins, 2 places), Phil Lam (3W, 4P) and Rich Pawlowski (6W, 0P). Kizenko hit Summer Flower, the biggest price of the day. Lam’s most lucrative payoff was that $15.40 place mutuel from Roll on Jesse. Pawlowski’s most handsome return was provided by the horse that beat Roll On Jesse…Guaponess ($11.80, $7.20) in race 9 at Laurel.

Guaponess was also the stable star for both Leonard Peterson (5 wins, 3 places) and Steve “Simulcast” Taracks (5W, 2P).

They got the Vegas spots in Sunday’s NHC Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers.

The other Sunday feature at HorsePlayers was a Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge play-in, and this one was also a Low Ratio competition.

Summer Flower along with 3 other winners and 1 runner up did the trick for Jamey Gjetley. 

Before we depart, a quick “Did you know?”:

Did you ever want to check how a buddy was doing in a highly-populated tourney (a Friday NHC qualifier, for example) and found yourself scrolling from page to page, squinting to find that person’s name? There’s a better way.

See that little magnifying glass next to the word “Player”? Click on it, and you’ll get this:

Then start to type the person’s name, and after a few letters, you’ll get this:

Click on the name, and you’ll immediately see how that person is doing. It doesn’t matter if you begin to type in the first name or the last name, the person you are looking for will pop up quickly. It sure beats scrolling and squinting.

You should also know that we wish good racing luck to all of you who will be competing this Friday and Saturday in Leg 3 of the HorseTourneys Champions Series—the New York New York Challenge. Qualifiers will continue right through Thursday. Buy-in entries, at $1,500 per entry, will be accepted up until post time for the first race on Friday.

And that brings us to one more “Did you know?”: 

The first race at Saratoga on Friday has a post time of 11:45 am ET. That means 8:45 am PT.

If you’re entered in the New York New York Challenge, it might be a good idea to get your picks in on Thursday night—just in case you oversleep or get otherwise distracted. You can always change them (before 11:45 am ET) the next day if you don’t oversleep. Why risk taking a zero for the entire first day?

Here’s hoping your week ahead is much more than a zero. Good luck!