I have no reason to believe that Evan Trommer is a selfish person. However, he certainly hijacked the Fourth of July—at least around here at HorseTourneys.

On a Pick & Pray Saturday, Trommer put together two similar, but not identical, sets of entries. One set had 3 wins and 3 places on it, which added up to a final score of $163.52. The other contained 4 firsts and 2 seconds…which amounted to $148.72. Trommer elected to play his entries across a wide variety of featured tourneys. A few hours after that, Trommer was lighting up the sky.

In Saturday’s $25,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray (an HT Tour event), which paid out a total of $30,789, Trommer finished first and fourth. Thanks in part to Awesomely Wild ($61.60, $20.20) in the 8th at Gulfstream, Trommer pocketed $13,855 for the win—and another $2,155 for the fourth-place effort. The total came to $16,010.

Trommer’s $163.52 scoresheet also put him on top of the leaderboard in Saturday’s Del Mar Summer Challenge and Kentucky Downs King of the Turf Handicapping Challenge qualifiers.

He let his “bad” ticket carry the water in Saturday’s $7,124 Big Bucks Pick & Pray…but he won that one too.

Here, Trommer collected $4,986, upping his cash haul for the day to $20,996.

In Saturday’s qualifier to the August 1 NYRABets handicapping tournament, Evan Trommer finished first and James Babis came in fourth. They each won $1,000 entries.

Different qualifier…same result.

Looks like Trommer and Babis will be seeing a lot of each other in early August.

On Sunday, Trommer didn’t go “scorched earth” again…but he didn’t go away empty-handed either.

Trommer defeated all except Robert “Bat” Masterton (3 wins, 3 places) in Sunday’s Haskell Challenge qualifier. They both received $1,000 entries in the July 18 contest.

If my math is correct, Trommer won cash and prizes worth $32,496 over the two days…all but $1,000 of that on Saturday. Impressive!

Curtis Brodzina was impressive in his own right on Wednesday.

Brodzina recorded 4 wins and 2 places to claim the $2,675 first prize in Friday’s $5,000 Guaranteed cash game, which closed with a pot of $5,944. His best pick was cap horse Kitten’s Ploy ($59.20, $24.00) in race 3 at cooler-than-many-other-Wednesday-racetracks Penn National.

Brodzina added an extra winner to his score in Wednesday’s qualifier to the $400,000 Gtd, Spa & Surf Showdown here on Aug. 29-30.

Brodzina edged out the 2023 Spa & Surf Showdown champion Anthony Spinazzola (4 wins, 2 places). Spinazzola also came up with Kitten’s Ploy.

Michael Caposio shared an appreciation of Kitten’s Ploy.

Caposio (4 firsts, 1 second) took home the $1,000 berth at the conclusion of Wednesday’s Haskell Challenge play-in.

Thursday was a chalky day here. The highest win price in our featured tourneys was $7.80. How do you get around a day like that? One strategy is to make collections in every single race. That’s what Robert “Great” Scott did.

Scott compiled 7 wins and 3 places en route to earning the $3,172 top prize in Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which paid out a total of $7,050. His best return came with The Boy’s Warrior, who ran second at 8-1 in the 7th at Penn National and paid $9.00 to place.

Peter Osella’s most productive pick was also a second-place finisher—No Time to Boogie. The 21-1 shot returned $14.20 to place in the 5th at Charles Town.

Osella (2 firsts, 5 seconds) snagged the $2,500 entry in Thursday’s Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier.

Three players won two grand prizes on Friday. One of them was Dane Moore.

Moore put up 3 winners and 2 places in Friday’s HT Tour battle, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which paid out a total of $8,042. The winner’s share for Moore came to $8,042. The biggest star in his stable was Perfecto Amor ($101.40, $21.40) in race 5 at Los Alamitos.

Dane was also great in Friday’s $70 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers.

He finished third in what was a four-seater. Topping the leaderboard…I mean really topping it…was Christopher Olsson, who finished first and second. Of course, NHC rules only allow people to win one seat in any given contest. So the other three seats went to Moore, Jeff Bussan (5 wins, 3 places) and Edward Reidy (2W, 3P). Everyone in this top group connected with Perfecto Amor.

With almost, but not quite, the same picks, Bussan took the top spot in Friday’s Haskell Challenge qualifier.

Runner up Ronald Tang (3 wins, 1 place) also reeled in a $1,000 seat for the July 18 online-only contest. His most lucrative pick was Harper’s Corner ($26.10, $9.42) in race 9 on the opening day card at Saratoga.

Dr. Tang used the same selections to take Friday’s Kentucky Downs King of the Turf Handicapping Challenge qualifier.

He gets a $2,500 entry to play on September 5th, the Saturday before Labor Day.

Sean O’Malley whiffed on his first seven contest plays, but hit two winners, including Perfecto Amor, over his final five.

O’Malley secured the one $2,500 seat that was up for grabs in Friday’s Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier.

The winner of Friday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers was “Bad, Bad” Leroy Schultz.

Perfecto Amor was one of Schultz’s three Friday winners.

It’s now time to take a look at Saturday tourneys that Evan Trommer did not win. (This shouldn’t take too long.)

Remember how James Babis finished second behind Trommer in Saturday’s Del Mar and Kentucky Downs qualifiers? Well, he took a backseat to no one in the day’s Haskell Challenge play-in.

The other available spot in this two-seater went to Joe “Tex” Scanio, who counted Awesomely Wild ($61.60, $20.20) among his 2 wins and 4 places.

Trommer actually did finish first and third in Saturday’s four-seat, $120 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. Not surprisingly, however, Trommer was already double-qualified…so he was merely playing to bolster his NHC Tour Points total (which he certainly did).

Meanwhile, the Vegas packages went to Jerome Linderman (who finished 2nd), 2020 Flo-Cal Faceoff champ Thomas Blosser (4th), Mike Steindler (5th) and Robert Bertolucci (6th). Linderman, Blosser and Bertolucci all scored with Awesomely Wild. Steindler’s biggest shot in the arm came courtesy of Oobubbakakayo ($84.00, $25.00) in the 4th at Los Alamitos.

Mark Wilgard (2 wins, 0 places) and Stephen Thompson (2W, 2P) each found their way to Oobubbakakayo.

They got the $2,500 berths in Saturday’s Spa & Surf Showdown qualifier.

For Michael Saletta, the star of the day was Kensington Lane ($48.66, $18.28) in the 7th at Saratoga, the Belmont Oaks.

Saletta garnered a low-cost Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge entry in Saturday’s $179 qualifier at HorsePlayers.

For NHC Hall of Famer Paul Shurman, the highlight of the weekend was the Fifth of July.

Unlike Saturday—when three winners had their win prices capped and another paid $37.00—Sunday brought us much lower prices. The “bomb” of the day was Bettrluckythangood ($16.82, $8.94) in the 9th at Saratoga. Shurman had that one plus 3 other winners and 3 runners up to make off with the $11,221 grand prize in Sunday’s $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray (an HT Tour game), which closed with a final purse of $24,937.

The same picks also brought Shurman a Spa & Surf Showdown seat.

Different picks brought Ivar Cuellar (6 wins, 3 places) a Spa & Surf Showdown seat. He finished second to Shurman. Cuellar’s biggest return came from No Denying ($7.20, $3.20) in the 8th at Monmouth.

No Denying was also the top dog for 2018 The BIG One champ Joe Pettit.

Pettit grabbed the $6,500 package in Sunday’s guaranteed qualifier to the July 25-26 Del Mar Summer Challenge. 

There were three seat winners in Sunday’s $155 NHC qualifier here at HorseTourneys.

Congratulations to Rob Ramirez (4 wins, 4 places), Kyle “Lord” Snowden (6W, 2P), and 2020 Spa & Surf Showdown champ Scott Fiedler (3W, 3P). Ramirez and Fiedler nailed Bettrluckythangood. Snowden realized his best return from Mi Bago ($8.40, $8.80), one of the dead-heat winners of race 6 at Saratoga.

Jamey Gjetley rocketed out of the starting gate with four straight winners. Later he hit Bettrluckythangood.

Gjetley amassed 6 winners in all en route to victory in Sunday’s Kentucky Downs King of the Turf Handicapping Challenge qualifier.

Eric Pineiro was also a Bettrluckythangood backer.

Pineiro recorded 5 wins and 2 places, and he won the $10,000 seat in Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier. Daniel “El Camino” Real reported home in second position—good for a $5,000 partial BCBC berth.

For Tom Mooney, the heaviest lifter on Sunday was Hope Town Girl ($8.00, $4.60) in the 9th at Gulfstream.

Mooney picked up a $1,000 entry in Sunday’s qualifier to the NYRABets handicapping contest on August 1.

Before we sign off, we want to update you on the two Saratoga Super Survivor tourneys that got underway on Friday.

The one with the $50 buy-in (sounds like the title of an episode of “Friends”) closed with 149 entries and a winner-take-all purse of $6,556. It is now down to 47 live entrants.

Our $250 Saratoga Super Survivor tourney attracted 66 entries, which made for a winner-take-all pot of $14,520. After three days of racing, there are 20 entries that remain alive.

So, in both tourneys, less than one-third of the initial entries are still going. These Super Survivor games are not as easy as they might appear!

Thank you very much for spending a portion of your holiday weekend with us. The featured-tourney fun resumes on Wednesday…with more recaps to follow on Monday. Until then, good luck!