It’s almost time to flip another page on the wall calendar. But before we do, don’t forget to play our Guaranteed $5,000 tourney on Friday, September 30.  The competition pays down to 4th place with $2,500 to the winner and full prizes will be played no matter how many (or few) show up. It’s a Pick & Pray game with an entry fee of $185. Contest races will be Belmont’s 6th through 9th; Churchill’s 9th and 10th; and Santa Anita’s 1st, 4th, 5th and 6th.

What better way to ring in October on Saturday than with a big, 3-seat-guaranteed NHC qualifier for $160 (two entries maximum per person). If we get 280 entries, we’ll toss in a fourth NHC package. This is one of the few games this weekend that will utilize a live format. Contest races for this and our other featured tourneys on Saturday are Belmont’s 6th through 10th; Santa Anita’s 4th through 8th and Churchill’s 7th and 10th (12 races in all).

The weekend’s richest event also takes place on Saturday — it’s our $12,500 Guaranteed game, which you many enter for $195. The winner gets $6,250 and prizes are paid (guaranteed) down to 6th place.

Saturday also has a full package qualifier to next month’s Orleans Fall Classic (one package per 15 entries) for $97 and an entry-only qualifier (one per 20) to the 2017 Horse Player World Series for an entry fee of $87. Here’s a look at some of Saturday’s best games:

Sunday has five tourneys vying for top billing. We’ll start with our qualifier to the November 26 Twin Spires Online Championship. (We just started these last weekend and think they’re great.) We’ll be awarding one $750 package ($500 entry + $250 cash) for every 15 players, with entries costing just $58. The Twin Spires Online Championship offers cash along with 20 NHC seats and 30 HPWS entries.

Also on Sunday are direct qualifiers to the Del Mar Fall Classic ($4,500 value; $212 entry fee, one winner per 25) and the Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge ($3,500 value, $160 entry fee, one winner per 25).

Cash game players will like our $7,500 Guaranteed game and our $1,500 Guaranteed Exacta Box game. Both contests pay down to 5th with top prizes of $3,750 in our $7,500 game ($190 entry fee) and $600 in our Exacta game ($54 entry). Here’s a snapshot of our featured Sunday schedule:

For those who missed the news last week, our exacta box games now include our popular “Speed Picks” selection feature. So entering selections for Exacta games are now every bit as quick and easy as with our other more traditional win/place tourneys.

Enjoy the football, the conclusion to the pennant races and, of course, all of our games this weekend at HorseTourneys.  Good luck!

By now, many of you know the final, nitty-gritty results from The BIG One, held last Saturday and Sunday at Laurel Park.

Dan Flanigan played a masterful tournament, preserving his bankroll until the race he had been waiting for all weekend, the 9th at Belmont on Sunday, came along.

He bet $1,000 into the race, including $400 to win on the 3-1 winner and $100 on the winning exacta combination that paid $84 for a deuce. That put Dan over the top and gave him just enough to hold off what was a late surge from Larry Burns, who had led prior to Flanigan’s big hit.

Dan’s win even got a write-up in Tuesday’s Baltimore Sun, which was very cool.

At the finish of the 51-person tournament (unfortunately one player couldn’t attend due to a personal issue), the top eight finishers won both NHC and Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge seats. Two additional players won NHC seats, and 10 others won their choice of Horse Player World Series entries or $1,500. Not bad for a 51-player field. Total value of the live bankrolls, prize pool, tournament seats and player benefits exceeded $375,600.

In fact, NHC seats ultimately went to the 11th, 12th and 13th-place finishers since three people in the top 10 — Tony Zhou, Eric Moomey and Brett Wiener — were already double qualified for the NHC. Thanks to a special provision in The BIG One’s rules, Zhou, Moomey and Wiener each received $5,000 cash in lieu of an NHC seat.

Long after I forget the details of the competition, though, I’ll remember the fun experience of being a small part of this event.

It was my first time attending The BIG One and the vibe was unique. All players stayed at the nearby Aloft Hotel in Hanover with many bringing friends and family. By the time of the Friday night welcome dinner at Dave and Buster’s (in the same complex as the Maryland Live! Casino), it seemed to me that everyone was in an extraordinarily good mood — excited but not tense.

That proved to be the case all weekend long. There were no drama kings or queens…players treated each other and the Laurel staff collegially and respectfully…it was just a nice group to be around from player 1 through player 51. Over the two days we received exactly one complaint about a player who had apparently gotten audibly angry after a tough beat. It was not something we had noticed prior to receiving the complaint.

I suppose it helps when players are on a “free roll” — which was essentially the case since all 51 had previously qualified either through HorseTourneys (49 such qualifiers) or Laurel Park (2). But I’ve attended every single NHC and the mood there, even at the beginning, is filled with much more tension and nervousness. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — it’s part of what makes the NHC so electric and intense. The BIG One, though, was much more intimate. Players were there to fire away, but they weren’t too obsessed to enjoy each other’s company — at Laurel, at Dave & Buster’s, at the Aloft Hotel bar — while they were at it.

A lot of the credit for the great setting belongs to the staff at Laurel Park. So many improvements were being worked on while we were there. It was truly exciting to see a track inventing such resources in its facility. Laurel will definitely be worth a visit if you haven’t been there recently.

The BIG One was held in a beautiful new section of the second floor clubhouse and everyone from Stronach Group Chief Operating Officer Tim Ritvo on down was constantly checking in with us to make sure that conditions were perfect and that players had everything they needed — from food and drink to power and light…and even when it came to switching overhead TVs to particular racetrack signals or baseball/football games they wanted to keep an eye on. Here’s Tim on the left with The BIG One contestant John Scheinman in the tournament area:

“There will never be a better tournament venue than this,” said Gene Cahalan at the conclusion of the competition. “Everything was roomy, beautiful and great.” (Perhaps it should be noted that Gene was not handing out bouquets simply because he had enjoyed a successful tournament. He didn’t. His live bankroll was tapped out at the end.)

And at the risk of sounding too much like a company man, I also have to give credit to HorseTourneys president McKay Smith for all the personal touches he provides (straight out of his pocket) at The BIG One.

Prior to the start of The BIG One, McKay offered to provide (free of charge) the drink of choice (alcoholic or non-alcoholic) to any player if he or she thought the Laurel open bar might not stock it. Three players took him up on it. So making their BIG One debuts in 2016 were bottles of Blanton’s bourbon, Tito’s vodka and Campari liqueur.

We also had a little trouble early on Saturday morning when the shuttle bus we hired to bring people from the hotel to Laurel showed up at the wrong Aloft hotel. Remarkably, very few were negatively affected. However, one player, Steve Arrison wound up having to take a taxi to Laurel. When McKay learned of this, he reached into his wallet and refunded Steve’s $40 cab fare before Steve had even taken his seat for the day.

A half-hour or so later, Steve insisted that McKay accept $20 tickets on two of Steve’s favorite plays that day. That was sort of a microcosm of the whole weekend to me.

It’s little stuff like that that I am going to remember most about my first trip to The BIG One. And why I will be looking very much forward to returning.

Dan Flanigan, a 45-year-old investment executive from Medina, Minn., hit a veritable “all-in”, $1,000 wager on Belmont’s 9th race that returned $5,858.30 — good for first place in a field of 51 at this weekend’s The BIG One tournament at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md.

Flanigan, a horse owner who runs equity trading for an investment bank in Minneapolis, came into The BIG One with a strategy that played out to perfection.

“I mapped out both days and got excited about the 9th at Belmont on Saturday,” said Flanigan. “I really liked the 3 [Ten Penny Princess] and I liked the 6 [Rosedale Arch] too. I wanted to bide my time, preserve my bankroll and then put everything on this race. We all make plans and it’s not often that they work out, but this one did.”

Indeed. Ten Penny Princess won and paid $8.20, and Rosedale Arch completed an $84.00 exacta. Flanigan had $400 to win on Ten Penny Princess and $100 on the 3-6 exacta combination that paid $84.00 for a $2.00 bet. Total return for the race; $5,840.

Flanigan leaves The BIG One with his $5,858.30 final bankroll, plus first-place prize money of $35,200, plus an NHC package, plus a $10,000 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge entry. The BIG One offered $103,000 in prize money, 10 NHC seats, eight BCBC seats and 10 Horse Player World Series entries. Total value of The BIG One including bankroll, tournament seats and all benefits was $375,600.

“This was my first time at The BIG One, and I loved the format. It was a select field with a live-bankroll format, and you really had to handicap. There were 20-1 shots coming in both days that no one had. That would never happen in a mythical money tourney, Flanigan said.”

Larry Burns…

led for much of Day 2 before being passed by Flanigan. He then hit the last race at Gulfstream but fell just shy of catching the leader. Burns finished with $5,121.10, more than twice as much as third place finisher Tony Zhou.

Burns received $17,600 in addition to his final, live-betting bankroll. Like Flanigan and the other Top 8 finishers, Burns wins NHC and BCBC seats.

All 51 The BIG One contestants were winners when it came to the hospitality shown by the gracious and industrious staff at Laurel Park. Laurel officials pulled out all the stops for its tournament guests, providing sumptuous buffets, open bar and attentive customer service to all players throughout the two days.

“Laurel Park and its staff was great,” said Flanigan. “It’s terrific to see all the improvements and renovations being made here. And yet it still retains that great feel of an older track.”

Michael Caposio, Gary Johnson, Kevin McIntyre, Pete Acocella, Eric Moomey, Brett Wiener and Frank Sorenson completed the Top 10 at The BIG One.

Players started with a $1,000 live bankroll and were required to make 10 plays of at least $50 on each day of the two-day competition. Contest tracks on Saturday were Laurel, Gulfstream, Belmont and Parx. Sunday tracks were Laurel, Gulfstream, Belmont and Churchill Downs.

Next year’s The BIG One competition is expected to once again take place at Laurel Park in September or October of 2017. Qualifiers for the 2017 The BIG One will be offered exclusively at HorseTourneys.com starting this coming January.

Here are the complete final standings of this year’s event:

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Michael Caposio of Temecula, Calif. had one big hit on Saturday. But that was enough to secure him the lead after Day 1 of the two-day The BIG One tourney at Laurel Park in Laurel, Md.

Caposio played $20 to win on 22-1 shot Broadway Bay ($46.20) in Race 5 at Parx to collect $462.00. And he also played a $20 cold exacta on Broadway Bay over runner up (3-1 shot) Kelly Tough. The $2 exacta came back at $248.20. But Caposio had it 10 times for a total haul of $2,944. It was the only winning race Caposio had all day…but that was enough (despite subsequent losses) to finish Day 1 with a total of $3,034 — $566 more than Day 1 runner up Nicholas Fazzolari.

Here are the complete end-of-Day-1 standings:

From an initial field of 52, three people busted out during Day 1. Plus one player was unable to attend The BIG One due to a personal issue. As a result, 48 players will return for Day 2, vying for $103,000 in prize money plus 10 NHC seats, 8 BCBC seats and 10 HPWS seats.

Day 2 will feature Laurel, Belmont, Gulfstream and Churchill Downs as contest tracks.

Although much of the HorseTourneys team is on site at Laurel this weekend to host The BIG One, we’ve been careful not to neglect our bread and butter — fun and lucrative weekend tourney action.

Things get rolling in earnest later today with our popular $5,000 Guaranteed Friday game, which pays down to fourth place and has $2,500 going to the winner. Entry is $185. Contest races for our featured Friday tourneys are: Belmont’s 6th through 9th; Churchill’s 9th and 10th; Woodbine’s 8th and 9th; and Laurel’s 6th and 9th.

The weekend’s richest event comes Saturday with our $12,500 Guaranteed game, which you many enter for $195. The winner gets $6,250 and prizes are paid down to 6th place. Contest races for this — and our other featured tourneys on Saturday — are: Belmont’s 6th through 10th; Parx’s 7th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 12th (It’s Pennsylvania Derby Day); and Woodbine’s 8th and 9th.

We’ll also have on Saturday a full package qualifier to next month’s Orleans Fall Classic (one package per 15 entries) for $97 and an entry-only qualifier (one per 20) to the 2017 Horse Player World Series for an entry fee of $87.

Sunday has a quintet of tourneys deserving special mention. We’ll start with our first-ever qualifier to the Twin Spires Online Championship. We’ll be awarding one $750 package for every 15 entries, with entries costing just $58. The Twin Spires Online Championship offers cash along with 20 NHC seats and 30 HPWS entries. And if at first you don’t succeed, we’ll have more qualifiers to this event in the coming weeks.

Also on Sunday are direct qualifiers to the Del Mar Fall Classic ($4,500 value; $212 entry fee, one winner per 25) and the Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge ($3,500 value, $160 entry fee, one winner per 25). Contest races for these and our other major Sunday tourneys are Belmont’s 5th through 9th races; Churchill’s 9th and 10th races; Laurel’s 6th, 8th and 9th races; and Gulfstream’s 8th and 10th races. Twelve races in all.

Last but not least, our cash game specialists are sure to enjoy either our $7,500 Guaranteed game or our $1,500 Guaranteed Exacta Box game…or both! Both contests pay down to 5th with top prizes of $3,750 in our $7,500 game ($190 entry fee) and $600 in our Exacta game ($54 entry).

Incidentally, our exacta box game aficionados should know that our popular “Speed Picks” selection feature is now available for all exacta games. So playing these should be easier than ever.

Whether you’re enjoying a nice weekend at home or here at Laurel for The BIG One, we wish you a fun and profitable final weekend in September. Good luck!

We all know what a “Key Race” is…a race in which, say, three or more starters go on to win or do unusually well in their next race. Could it be that there is such a thing as a “Key Contest”?? After last weekend’s cash games at HorseTourneys, I’m starting to wonder.

Take a look at the above leaderboard in Saturday’s $12,500 Guaranteed tourney. You’ll see Anthony Trezza won $6,250 for his first-place score of $136.80. Finishing third, good for $3,000, was Charles Browning with a score of $91.20. I typed Charles’s name in italics a la a company line in the PPs for a next-out winner because check out what happened in Sunday’s $7,500 Guaranteed game:

…Yep, Browning, our third-place finisher on Saturday, came out of that race…err, contest…to win our featured Sunday cash game. And check out who ran third on Sunday: Saturday winner Anthony Trezza. If there IS such a thing as a key contest, then I guess last Saturday’s $12,500 game was it. For the record, Trezza collected a total of $7,500 for his win and third — and Browning received $6,750 for his second and first.

Before we move on to the rest of Sunday, kudos to Ben Clayton and Anthony Garafalo who each won full packages to the Orleans Fall Classic on Saturday…and to Peter Milburn and Howard Welsh won won $1,500 entries into next year’s Horse Player World Series.

On Sunday, Kevin Jones and William Epp became the final two online qualifiers for The BIG One, which will be held this Saturday and Sunday at Laurel.

The live-bankroll event, limited to a maximum of 57 players (all with one entry each), awards cash along with 10 NHC spots, eight BCBC entries and 10 HPWS seats. Participants in The BIG One have an excellent chance of walking away with a seat in a “major” tourney. If you want in and haven’t qualified, you can buy in for $9,000 but there are only five buy-in seats available so contact HorseTourneys ASAP if you are interested in one of these five buy-in seats.

Scores were high in Sunday’s 3-seat Guaranteed NHC qualifier. Congratulations to Gary Gristick ($139.70), Edward Osterhout ($125.20) and Dan Flanigan ($124.20) who finished at the top of the heap and all punched their tickets to the big dance.

In other high-end qualifiers on Sunday, Jim Klein ($134.50) and Bill O’Neal ($122.80) won $3,500 packages to next month’s Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge. And Pete Acocella ($96.60) took top honors in winning a $4,500 package to November’s Del Mar Fall Classic.

Last but not least, Ruben Lopez had $1 exacta payoffs of over $90 in both Woodbine’s 8th race and Woodbine’s 9th race to win the $600 first prize in Sunday’s $1,500 guaranteed Exacta Box tourney. Ruben is undoubtedly hoping that this becomes a “key contest” for next Sunday’s guaranteed exacta box tourney!

Thanks to all of our participants in last weekend’s tourneys, and good luck in all of your contest endeavors this week. We’ll be bringing you updates here and on Twitter live from The BIG One at Laurel this weekend.

This weekend is your last chance to qualify online for The BIG One, plus there are opportunities to qualify for prestigious tourneys including the NHC. Or, if you prefer, you could just win a lot of cash. Here are the details:

The big, Pick & Pray-centric weekend gets started on Friday with a $5,000 Guaranteed tourney on Belmont races 6 through 9, Churchill races 8 through 10 and Arlington’s 3rd, 5th and 6th races. Top prize is $2,500 with payoffs down to 5th place. Entry is $185. As a guaranteed contest, all prizes will be paid regardless of participation levels. Will we have more overlay tourneys like last weekend? Could be. It would be a nice way to pad your bankroll for:

Saturday’s most lucrative game is our $12,500 Guaranteed event (races TBA as of this writing) with payments down to 6th place and $6,250 going to the winner. With our takeout rate of just 10%, you won’t find a better proposition anywhere this weekend.

You could also attempt to win a package ($500 entry plus $750 travel) to next month’s Orleans Fall Classic…or a $1,500 seat to the 2017 Horse Player World Series. We’ll be offering one Orleans package per every 15 entries at $97 each — and one $1,500 HPWS entry per every 20 entries at $87 each. Both tournaments are Pick & Prays so, in case it’s your day, why not enter both?

Saturday is also your last chance to play in a low-cost feeder to the next day’s The Big One direct qualifier. Entry fee for the Saturday feeder is $106, with one in five moving on to the Sunday qualifier, where the entry fee is obviously higher.

Any interest in an onsite tournament limited to 57 players that gives away 10 NHC seats, 8 BCBC seats, 10 HPWS entries plus cash? We thought so. The bad news is that Sunday is your very last chance to qualify online for the Sept. 24-25 The Big One at Laurel. Entry fee for this “last chancer” is $478, so if you don’t succeed in our Saturday feeder, be sure to take a swing on Sunday. Two The BIG One packages are guaranteed to be awarded. These packages include your $1,000 live bankroll, a complimentary three-night hotel stay, an additional $500 in travel expenses, plus food and open bar Friday night plus Saturday and Sunday during the two days of contest action. At The BIG One, you’ll be treated like a BIG shot.

There’s another major qualifier on tap for Sunday in our 3-seat-guaranteed NHC qualifier which carries an entry fee of just $160. And if we hit 280 participants, we’ll toss in a fourth seat. In addition to the three or four NHC berths, NHC Tour points will be up for grabs as usual for you NHC Tour players.

We’ll also be hosting direct qualifiers on Sunday for the Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge ($160 entry, one $3,500 package winner per 25 entries) and the Del Mar Fall Classic ($212 entry, one $4,500 package winner per 25 entries).

Cash game players will likely be interested in our $7,500 guaranteed game that pays to 5th place with $3,750 going to the victor; and also in our $1,500 guaranteed exacta box tourney which also pays to 5th and has $600 to the winner. The $7,500 game costs $190 to play and the $1,500 exacta event has a buy-in of just $54. Both tourneys will pay full prizes regardless of how many enter. So if some players are directing all their attention to Sunday’s The BIG One and NHC qualifiers, this might be a chance for you to sneak and grab some nice cash. Here is an at-a-glance look at our biggest Sunday events:

There’s a lot on the line this weekend, so happy handicapping and may all your horses break sharp and finish strong. Good luck!

We are proud to be the only contest site with two alternate options for entering tourney picks and — at the risk of immodesty — we think they’re both great! Whether you’re new to our site or an old pro, we thought it might be helpful to do a quick overview of the Speed Picks and Pro Picks features.

When HorseTourneys started, the only way to enter picks here and at other sites was to toggle back and forth from one race page to another. And you can still do this, of course. But if you’re like a lot of players, at this point you’ve completed all of your handicapping and know who you like in every race. In this case, you just want to input your picks onto our selections page as quickly and easily as possible. (This could be especially true if you have entered a Pick & Pray at the last minute and are really up against the clock in terms of getting your picks in before the deadline.) Herein lies the beauty of Speed Picks (my personal favorite when I am playing just one tourney in a given day).

Speed Picks offers you a single-page view of all races in a tourney with the option to enter both a main selection and an alternate selection for each race. Each race starts out with a white background, but once you enter both a main pick and an alternate pick for a race, the background turns green, meaning you are completely good to go for that race. If you just enter a main pick but no alternate pick, the background will be red to alert you that you still have the option to enter an alternate selection.

If you prefer not to enter an alternate pick, that is fine…you can still save and submit your picks without any issues…you will just be assigned the post time favorite should your main pick be scratched in any “red” race where you didn’t designate an alternate. Here’s how it looks, color-wise. Note that alternate picks were entered for the first four races of this particular tourney but only a main pick was entered for the 5th race:

Pro Picks is another option for entering multiple picks quickly. Many people find it is of particular value when you are playing more than one entry in a given tourney or more than one tourney in a given day.

Above is a look at what pops up when you click on event 5 of your contest — you get a pop up of the horses in that race so you can enter your main and alternate picks. When all of your race picks are entered, you can click on “All Picks” in the upper left and see all of your selections for this tourney at one glance.

But let’s say you are playing two tourneys today…

…If you have entered multiple contests, you can click the “Go To Contest Entry…” dropdown menu at the top and you can click on any of the tourneys you have entered — all from this same page.

Now let’s say you have made all of your picks for your first entry, and you want to enter those exact same picks for your second tourney (this assumes, of course, that the contest races for the second tourney are the same as in the first tourney). You can click on “All Picks”, view your picks for one tourney, then at the bottom (where it says “Copy these picks to entry:) you can select another tourney you’ve entered and copy those picks to that one automatically.

Of course you will be asked if you’re sure you want to do this, just to prevent against someone copying picks by mistake.

Many of our players playing multiple tournaments like to use the same picks in all tournaments. Pro Picks lets them execute this quickly and easily. But even contestants who play multiple entries in the same tournament like Pro Picks because it enables them to  see their picks for entry #1, quickly copy them to entry #2 and then make changes to some of the entry #2 picks in order to “spread” where it suits them and to “double down” (i.e. use the same picks in both entries) when they are confident in using only one horse for that race. It’s almost like editing a memo before you send it on to your boss.

For a good while, I entered my picks the old fashioned way by going back and forth from one event page to another. When I discovered Speed Picks, I was immediately hooked…and also felt a little stupid for not having tried it out earlier. And Pro Picks takes the user-friendly technology one step further for the “multi-table” player to help him or her save time and (more importantly, as far as I am concerned) stay better organized as you manage your multiple entries.

We are always looking for ways to give our players the best user experience possible, and we hope you will explore these options if you haven’t already done so. Keep in mind, though, that the best option for you is the one you are most comfortable with. Technology is a great thing…as long as YOU manage IT and not the other way around!

It was a winning Saturday for Lucas Van Zandt…and a losing one for HorseTourneys.

Van Zandt ($77.60) prevailed in a close battle with James Hall ($76.40) and Craig Horn ($71.50) to take the $22,500 first-place prize in Saturday’s $50,000 Guaranteed game.

The operative word here is “Guaranteed”. The event attracted 91 entries at $495 each, meaning we took in $45,045 and paid out the full, advertised amount of $50,000.

We at HorseTourneys never intentionally set out to lose money like that. But we do like to be aggressive in offering our players a wide range of tournaments — and that includes guaranteed games. And we feel that if you offer guaranteed games that are never in doubt of reaching the guarantee, then you’re just playing games with your customers. It would be similar to a track advertising a Pick 4 guaranteed pool of $100,000 on a date that has historically attracted Pick 4 pools of $250,000. What’s the point?

Saturday was another example of HorseTourneys’s undying commitment to treat contest players fairly. And if that means splashing a few Guaranteed pots occasionally. We greatly appreciate what HorseTourneys players have done for us over the years, and we don’t mind returning those favors. It may hurt in the short term, but we think it’s good business in the long term.

We also had three exciting direct qualifiers on Saturday that will send people on to key brick-and-mortar tourneys.

Mike McIntyre posted a nice score of $98.10 to finish as the convincing winner of our one-time-only Woodbine Mile Tourney qualifier. Armed with a $4,250 package, Mike will do battle this weekend in suburban Toronto.

Lindsay Hurst ($90.90) and John Melting ($86.20) each won full packages ($500 entry plus $750 travel) to next month’s Orleans Fall Classic.

And John Vail won a nail-biter to win our entry-only Horse Player World Series qualifier by 50 cents with a score of just $54.40. Keep in mind that Saturday’s featured games had a robust slate of 14 contest races. So Vail actually won a HorseTourneys qualifying event despite not turning a flat-bet profit on his plays. It happens sometimes…

On Sunday, Les Harris ($95.90) and Larry Burns became the 47th and 48th online winners of The BIG One packages. The BIG One takes place on Sept. 24-25 at Laurel. That means that the final two online seats will be on offer this Sunday at HorseTourneys. The event is capped at 57 players, including up to five “buy-ins” at $9,000 each also allowed. If interested in a buy-in seat, please contact us at support@horsetourneys.com.

Steven Turner posted the big score among Sunday’s featured tourneys — $104.90. That tally was good for a $4,500 package in the Nov. 12-13 Del Mar Fall Classic.

Scores were very close in our Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge qualifier. David Johnson and Peter Osella prevailed in this one with scores of $99.30 and $96.90, respectively. Osella edged out the third place finisher by just $2.00.

On the cash side, Scott Krause blasted out to a fast start, hitting winners at odds of 3-2, 12-1 and 7-1 with his first three plays and nursed that cushion all the way to the wire to take the $3,750 top prize in Sunday’s $7,500 Guaranteed game.

In our $1,500 guaranteed exacta box game, scores were on the low side. For winner Justin Gray, the big “hit” was a $1 exacta payoff of $46.00 on the 7th at Woodbine. That ultimately was the difference for Gray, who took the top spot and the $600 that went with it.

This past weekend at HorseTourneys was yet another reminder that sometimes you need to be great, sometimes you need to be just okay, and sometimes the odds are in your favor if you just show up.