We’ve reached the point in the year when the NTRA sometimes schedules more than one NHC qualifier on a single day at HorsePlayers. That happened on Sunday—and Mike Lazarus became the latest person to parlay one set of selections into two Vegas entries.

If you’re lucky—and skillful—one day here can change your whole year. That was the case for two different players last Friday.

Thanks in part to 15-1 Baseball Lady in Thursday’s 5th race at Belmont, Dr. Ronald Tang was in a…league of his own…here last week.

Glen Gottlieb began woke up on Saturday thinking it would be nice to win a seat to the NHC someday. He did that last weekend…and more.

No Del Mar racing last week. No NYRA racing either. That made it sort of a “tweener” week around here, but there was still plenty of action—and, on Friday, New Englander Geoffrey Schutt took full advantage.

We all remember where we were when we made the biggest score of our horseplaying career. In Mike Yurczyk’s case, he was working the cash register at the Bo Diddley’s sandwich stand at Canterbury Park. That’s where he spent most of last Sunday anyway.

The final margin of victory wasn’t much—just 24 cents—but that scant difference delivered a monstrous payday of $196,057 to Mike Yurczyk in the 8th annual Spa & Surf Showdown here at HorseTourneys.

On Friday and Saturday, David Nelson turned a couple of strong handicapping days into a couple of exciting contest months to come.

The handicapping marksmanship of “Pistol” Pete Acocella was on full display last weekend. He hit the target two times on Saturday and twice more on Sunday.

William “23” Sadoo hit 47-1 shot Take a Stance ($96.20, $36.22) in Sunday’s first contest race, the 6th at Saratoga, and that led to a lot of winning for the Pennsylvanian-turned-Californian.