Things may feel a bit different this week with Saratoga and Del Mar over and the kids all back to school. But it is business as usual this weekend at HorseTourneys with 10 lucrative and fun featured games on Saturday and Sunday that will help us forget that the excitement of summer ever ended.

Our marquee tourney on Saturday is our big $50,000 guaranteed game. It has $22,500 up top for the winner and will pay down to 12th place. Entry is $495 and, as a guaranteed game, it will pay out in full regardless of how many entries we get. Overlay watchers will want to keep a sharp eye out for this one. As of this writing (Friday evening), it looks like it will be a positive expectation event for contest players.

Note that this tourney – and all our “featured” tourneys on Saturday – will have a robust slate of 14 contest races: Belmont’s 7th through 10th, Arlington’s 6th through 8th, Laurel’s 9th and 10th; and Kentucky Downs’s 6th through 10th.

We are also running direct qualifiers for three important brick-and-mortar events. Of particular note is a one-time-only qualifier for the September 17 Woodbine Mile Tourney. One full package ($3,500 Canadian entry fee/live bankroll + $750 travel) will be awarded per every 25 entries. Also on tap Saturday is a full package ($500 entry + $750 travel) qualifier to next month’s Orleans Fall Classic (one package handed out per each 15 entries) and, speaking of The Orleans, we’ll also be hosting an entry-only qualifier for the 2017 Horse Player World Series. HorseTourneys entry fees are $160 for Woodbine, $97 for the Orleans Fall Classic and $87 for the Horse Player World Series qualifier.

Last but not least on Saturday is a Round 2 feeder for Sunday’s The BIG One direct qualifier. Only four online seats remain available for the Sept. 24-25 The BIG One, so play this week and next week or forever hold your peace (until next year, at least). Our Saturday qualifier (note that this one will utilize the Pick & Pray format) is $106, with one of every five players advancing on to Sunday’s qualifier where seats will cost $478 each.

Sunday is topped by the aforementioned The BIG One direct qualifier. Two full packages (including hotel, welcome dinner and travel) are guaranteed to be awarded regardless of participation count. We’ll be backing this exciting qualifier up with qualifiers to two other high-end tourneys – the Del Mar Fall Classic (Nov. 12-13) and the Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge. The Del Mar Fall Classic tourney awards a $4,000-entry-plus-$500-travel prize per every 25 players. Entry fee is $212. The Keeneland entry fee is $160 and will offer one package ($3,000 entry plus $500 travel) per every 25 participants.

Cash game players will likely be interested in our $7,500 Guaranteed tourney, which costs $190, pays down to fifth place and has a first prize of $3,750…and also our $1,500 Guaranteed exacta box tourney which, for an entry of just $54, allows you to pick a three-horse exacta box in each race with the winner based on the highest aggregate $1 exacta payoffs from the contest races. The exacta box tourney (these are always a lot of fun) pays down to fifth and has $600 for the winner.

Contest races for our featured tourneys on Sunday are: Belmont’s 6th through 9th, Woodbine’s 6th through 8th and Kentucky Downs’s 5th through 9th (12 races in all).

These are just the highlights of the upcoming weekend. Check our complete menu of contests each day for the full array of offerings (including lots of fun Kentucky Downs tourneys this weekend). You are sure to find something that suits your preferred format and budget.

May you have a fun and profitable weekend at HorseTourneys. Good luck!

There are all kinds of ways to win handicapping tourneys. You can win them by striking early and opening up a big lead. You can win them by closing with a fury. And sometimes you can win them by not even doing particularly well. All such methods were on display over Labor Day Weekend at HorseTourneys.

Our feature event on Saturday, September 3 saw Jobby Blevins get absolutely nothing from his last five plays. Yet a hot start secured him the victory (worth $6,250) in our $12,500 Guaranteed game. Tim Downs’s key to success in our $1,500 Guaranteed exacta box game was the big hit. His $1 exacta payoff of $176.40 in the 9th at Kentucky Downs did the preponderance of the damage in his victory, which earned him $600.

And our Saturday Horse Player World Series entry game — won by David Snyder, Lucas Van Zandt and Richard Ilharreguy — was won in two distinctly different ways. Snyder and Van Zandt followed the typical custom of the day…which was to use cap horse Silver Ride in Saratoga’s 8th race (the first race of the tourney). Ilharreguy missed Silver Ride but was able to chip away at that setback with a wide array of other lower-priced winners. It shows yet again that all is not lost when a longshot wins in a contest and you don’t have it.

Our Sunday featured event saw Bill Wilbur, Richard Grose and Dave Durkin become the latest to “Get Qualified” to the NHC. Grose, some may recall, flirted with NHC glory in January 2013 when he led after Day 1 (back when it was still just a two-day championship). The Wentzville, Mo., native ultimately wound up 4th in the big dance.

David Sullivan was the big winner in Sunday’s $7,500 Guaranteed game — a triumph worth $3,750. In our Orleans Fall Classic competition, Joe Jarvie and Steven Meier were the clearcut winners, posting scores a good $30 above the rest of the field.

On Monday, a big day for Pick & Prays, Sean Nolan demonstrated the power of multi-tabling.

He was able to use the same set of good selections to win our Del Mar Fall Classic qualifier and also win a seat (along with Mike Yurczyk, George Chute and Ed Reed) to next Saturday’s $50,000 Guaranteed tourney. The $50,000 feeder was an oddly low scoring affair with Chute and Reed finishing “in the money” despite registering scores of less than $48 — a less-than-flat-bet-profit result). As they say in baseball, those bloopers that fall in make up for the line drives that get caught.

Paul Kimes and Jason Hill were our latest two qualifiers to The BIG One. Be aware that only four online seats remain available to the Sept. 24-25 event at Laurel. Your next chance to win comes on Sunday.

John Spignesi turned in a Zenyatta-like (Silky Sullivan-like?) performance in Monday’s Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier. He cashed in six of the last seven tourney races to leap frog the competition. In other top Labor Day tourneys, Dave Picarello won $2,500 in our $5,000 Guaranteed game. And David Johnson, Stephen Diaz and Jonathan Burns were the three winners of full packages in our popular Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge Direct Qualifier.

Once again, HorseTourneys players demonstrate that there are many different ways to skin a cat. Whether you are playing in our $50,000 Guaranteed game, our penultimate The BIG One qualifier, our one-time-only Woodbine Mile qualifier or one of the many other top games on this week’s slate, we wish you good luck and a good week.

If you’re a contest player and find yourself bored this weekend, it’s your own fault.

It’s almost as though we have two weekends worth of action crammed into one here at HorseTourneys. Things start to get rolling in earnest on Friday with a Guaranteed $5,000 Pick & Pray tourney for $185 that pays down to fourth place with $2,500 up top for the winner.

Saturday checks in with three big tourneys, a couple of medium-size games, plus one little one that we think is kind of nice.

We’ll have a $12,500 Guaranteed game that day with a $195 entry fee and $6,250 to the victor. It pays down to sixth position and is also a Pick & Pray, as are the majority of our games this weekend. There will also be one of our popular $1,500 Guaranteed exacta box games for just $54. This one is a live event that pays down to fifth with the winner receiving $600. There is also an entry-only Horse Player World Series direct qualifier Pick & Pray for $87 with one out of 20 punching a ticket to the Orleans. There’s an $850 Guaranteed Pick & Pray plus a fun, Guaranteed $250 Survivor (hit the board or die!) game. Last but not least, if any of you out there are rookies, we have a free tournament on Saturday for those whose accounts are 30-days-old or younger. You won’t get rich off this one. The prize pot is $25. But it’s a great way to get a feel for the rhythms of tournament play, learn the functionality of the site and just have some fun with zero risk. Check it out!

Our marquee event on Sunday, of course, is our NHC direct qualifier, which carries an entry fee of $160. We will be awarding a minimum of three NHC packages guaranteed. If participation in this live-format tourney pokes up over the 280 mark, we will toss in a fourth package to the prize pool. We’ll also be offering packages, one for every 15 entries, to next month’s Orleans Fall Classic. Entry to this Pick & Pray event is $97. Winners get a $500 Orleans entry plus $750 in travel. Cash game players haven’t been forgotten on Sunday. We’ll be hosting a $7,500 Guaranteed game with $3,750 to first and payments down to fifth. Entry is $190. Night owls will enjoy our $1,000 Los Alamitos Quarter Horse Guaranteed event. Last but not least, we’ll be running a $106 feeder to Labor Day’s The BIG One direct qualifier where it would cost you $478 to play. We’re down to less than two handfuls of online spots left for the Sept. 24-25 event at Laurel. So if you’re thinking BIG, there is no time to waste.

On Labor Day, our action — along with perhaps your barbecue grill — heats up further.

Closing day at Saratoga will undoubtedly be a prominent part of our aforementioned The BIG One direct qualifier. Entry is $478 and we will be awarding two packages (including hotel AND travel) no matter how many enter. We also have direct qualifying packages on tap for two more high-end, live-bankroll contests: the Oct. 16 Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge (our winners get a $3,000 entry plus $500 in travel…one per 25 entries) and the Nov. 12-13 Del Mar Fall Classic ($4,000 entry plus $500 travel, also one package per 25 players). For cash game specialists, there’s a $5,000 Guaranteed game ($185 to play) that pays to fourth with $2,500 to the winner. And also an important Round 2 feeder to our big $50,000 Guaranteed game on Sept. 10. One of every five entrants will advance to next week’s grand, $50K finale. Then to round things out on what sadly is the last major Monday national holiday of the year, we’re tossing in a second Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier of the weekend. Like Saturday’s event, this one will cost $87 to play and offer one HPWS entry per each 20 entries.

May your labor be minimal this weekend and your tourney luck plentiful. From all of us at HorseTourneys, please enjoy a safe and happy Labor Day weekend.

I saw something this weekend that gave me a case of deja-vu. It’s something that has relevance to handicapping in general…and also to contest play.

The vast majority of contests this past Saturday — regardless of contest site — utilized the Travers as one of its mandatory races. That’s no surprise because most two-turn, Grade I races run on a Saturday or Sunday wind up being included in contest race menus.

On paper, the Travers was a race with many legitimate contenders — two of which were speedy sorts trained by Bob Baffert, Arrogate and American Freedom, who departed from the two inside posts in the field of 13.

Most of the conventional wisdom I read in the media and on Twitter held that a) Baffert sure was unlucky with the draw and b) it would be interesting to see how they were positioned because their respective running styles didn’t figure to complement each other.

I actually thought the draw might be okay. Here is what I tweeted last Thursday.

You know how the Travers ended. If you haven’t seen a replay, watch it here…and watch how the two Baffert runners are positioned during the race.

Travers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HMyD7svqEI

American Freedom broke sharpest. Rafael Bejarano then floated American Freedom out to about the four path, which did two things: it gave Arrogate the opportunity to cut the corner and maintain the fence; and it pushed would-be speed threats (most notably the outside starting Laoban) very wide around the first turn to the point where Laoban had no real chance to clear the field. In fact, once Laoban used himself to get into second, Bejarano seemed to say “Enough of that” and used American Freedom approaching the end of the first turn to reclaim second so that HE would be the one “pressuring” Arrogate and not some third-party.

The two Baffert runners effectively utilized their gate speed to build a two-horse “Baffert Wall” around the first turn and make opponents go around or through them. Meanwhile any pressure on the leader would be friendly pressure, not true throat-latch pressure.

Obviously Arrogate ran an otherworldly race and was going to win the Travers under virtually any circumstances. And Gun Runner had a good trip and could have gone by American Freedom for second if he was good enough, which he wasn’t. Still I thought it interesting how Baffert (a former jockey) had his two horses positioned. It reminded me of…

…this year’s Belmont Stakes!

You’ll recall that Todd Pletcher had two prominent-early runners in Destin (post 2) and Stradivari (post 5). Plus there was WinStar-owned Gettysburg, who Pletcher had trained prior to the Belmont but had just been transferred to Steve Asmussen to serve as a rabbit for WinStar stablemate (and eventual Belmont winner) Creator. Keeping an eye on Gettysburg, Destin and Stradivari, watch how this race unfolds:

Belmont Stakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKxmvnqkXE4

What’s better than a two-horse wall? A three-horse wall! The entire free world knew that Gettysburg only had one job — to make the lead. But Pletcher (one of the sharpest race tacticians of any trainer I’ve ever seen) also knew exactly what kind of early speed Gettysburg had (fast enough, but not blazing fast). By granting Gettysburg the lead, then having Destin and Stradivari assume the two-path and three-path positions, respectively, Pletcher afforded himself a tactical advantage in a race where his horses were anything but standouts. (Only at Belmont, incidentally, do I think a trainer would attempt to have a horse as the outer marker of a three-horse wall. Elsewhere, the ground loss would be too debilitating.)

It nearly worked for Destin. Stradivari wasn’t enough horse on this day to make a big impact, but Destin was, losing by a dirty nose to Creator. “What about Governor Malibu?” you say? Wouldn’t he have won with a cleaner trip?

Ah but therein lies one of the fringe benefits of the wall. If one of your horses can’t continue on in the stretch due to the strains of the tactical ride, he effectively becomes a staggering, sometimes-weaving “blocker” down the stretch, running interference for his partner. That’s exactly what Gettysburg did to Governor Malibu. Technically speaking, Gettysburg wasn’t a Pletcher horse in this race, but he sort of was given the way Pletcher seemingly plotted out the race. And if you watch Stradivari down the stretch, you’ll see that he nearly impeded Creator at the same time that Gettysburg was doing his number on Governor Malibu.

I’ll leave you with one final example. Have a look at the 2015 Donn Handicap which featured a 4-5 favorite in Lea, and a pair of Pletchers — Constitution and Commissioner — who broke from the inside two stalls.

2015 Donn: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55vDhKsUz08

The ride on Commissioner is terrific. It kept Lea boxed up inside as long as possible while forcing all other non-Pletchers to go wide (no easy feat going two turns at Gulfstream). You probably saw Rosario have to steady Lea twice as they straightened for home. The inability to get clear earlier may have cost Lea the race.

Side note: The more I watch these kinds of races, it seems to me as if the “two-path” rider is sort of the quarterback. The rider on the lead just goes along and takes his cue from his partner outside of him. The two-path guy eases out if need be or nudges forward and prompts the pacesetter to go a little faster if that’s what it takes to ensure that the early leader takes friendly, “you-can-still-have-a-fairly-clear-lead” fire and not enemy fire.

In this era of supertrainers who have 70-120 high-quality horses in their barns, I’m betting we see another “Wall race” sooner rather than later.

Mind you, even if you’re with me all the way on this, none of this will ever point out a sure winner. Even if you suspect one of these scenarios is brewing, you still have to determine which of the two (or more) teammates will benefit the most. But I hope you find this as food for thought when you see this potential situation pop up in the future. It’s another way of looking at a big race, and it just might lead you to an overlaid contender — one that can make all the difference in a Saturday contest.

The final weekend of August promises to be a big one, both on-track and online, and HorseTourneys will be there every step of the way with exciting and valuable games (many of them guaranteed).

Friday gets things started with a pair of fun, guaranteed cash games. One is for $5,000 with prizes down to fourth place and $2,500 to the winner. It’s a Pick & Pray (so no worries about being “caught” at work) with an entry fee of $185. The 10 contest races are Saratoga’s 7th through 11th, Monmouth’s 7th through 9th and Gulfstream’s 9th and 10th. The other Friday guaranteed cash tourney is a $1,000, Saratoga-only Pick & Pray on the Spa’s 4th through 11th races. It pays down to fourth place with the winner receiving $425. Don’t let either of these tourneys go off as overlay events without signing up. You’ll also see  a couple of interesting Friday feeders, including one that will qualify you for not one, but two lucrative cash games during the weekend. Now that’s killing two birds with one stone!

Saturday has four featured games led by a Guaranteed $12,500 cash tourney with $6,250 to the winner and payoffs down to sixth place. Entry for this is $195. If winning seats to Vegas tournaments is more your thing, we’ll have direct qualifiers on Saturday to both the Orleans Fall Classic and the 2017 Horse Player World Series (also held at The Orleans, of course). The Orleans Fall Classic game costs $97 with 1 in 15 winning a $500 entry plus $750 in travel. The HPWS event is an $87 entry-only affair with 1 in 20 entrants winning a $1,500 seat. Also on Saturday is a feeder to Sunday’s The Big One direct qualifier. You can get into this feeder for $106, and 1 in 5 will win a spot in Sunday’s $478 event. Here is an overview of Saturday’s featured tourneys.

Sunday is topped by the aforementioned The BIG One qualifier with two seats guaranteed. Our two winners will receive entry plus hotel plus travel as well as the food and drink amenities always part and parcel of The BIG One at Laurel. There are also a pair of direct qualifiers to two other high-end, onsite tourneys. One of a $212 game with 1 in 25 winning a full package to the Del Mar Fall Classic (Nov. 12-13), including $4,000 entry and $500 travel. And we’re also proud to be hosting the year’s first qualifier to this year’s Keeneland NHC/BCBC Challenge. This game carries an entry fee of $160 with 1 in 25 participants receiving a $3,000 entry to the Oct. 16 tourney, along with $500 in travel. Cash game players also have some nice options on Sunday with a Guaranteed $7,500 game ($190 to enter) with $3,750 to the victor and prizes down to fifth place. And there is also another of our popular (three-horse) exacta box tourneys. It has a guaranteed pot of $1,500 with $600 allocated to the first-place finisher and payments to fifth. Entry fee here is just $54. Here’s a look, at-a-glance, at our top Sunday action.

Whether you’re after tournament seats or cash (or both), you’ll want to drop by HorseTourneys this weekend and be a part of the competition. Good luck in all of your tournament and parimutuel play!

Some people may remember this past weekend for Songbird and California Chrome. And, sure, those two were fine, I guess. But we HorseTourneys players are more likely to remember it for the truly exciting horses…like John Jones and Souper Knight and Camp Creek…the kind of longshots so essential to a successful tournament weekend!

John Jones (above at Laurel winning a stakes first off the claim) and Souper Knight (Del Mar) were the stars on Saturday. And they helped make stars out of several HorseTourneys competitors. Jeff Bussan, Ronald McKinnon and Steve Arrison missed on John Jones but they all had Souper Knight, and that was enought to propel them to full NHC packages in Saturday’s big qualifier.

The top two finishers — Scott Coles and Jamaal Barnett — in Saturday’s $25,000 Guaranteed game had both John Jones and Souper Knight, but Scott’s smaller pickups were the difference, and he took home the $12,500 first prize.

Souper Knight was key (along with 6-1 Saratoga 10th race winner Orino) for James Michelson, who took the $6,250 first-place share in our $12,500 Guaranteed game.

In our hotly contested Orleans Fall Classic qualifier, there was no single formula for success. In the end, it was Mark McGuire, William Sullivan, Lisa Cipriano, Steve Stange and James Nace who walked away with full packages.

Sunday’s big parimutuel star was Camp Creek (above) who upset the third jewel of the Canadian Triple Crown, the Breeders’ Stakes at Woodbine, to the tune of $55.30 and $26.20 — or as we are fond of saying here in contestland…$42.00 and $22.00.

Out of 40 contestants in our The BIG One Pick & Pray qualifier, only winner Sean Nolan had Camp Creek. Nolan and runnerup Jill Himes — who tabbed six winners at prices ranging from $4.40 to $31.20 — will both be at Laurel on Sept. 24-25 for The BIG One. Only eight online spots remain, so be sure to play with us again next Sunday.

Camp Creek was less of a mystery to players in our $7,500 Guaranteed game. Gary Machiz and each of the next three finishers nailed the Woodbine longshot. Machiz won $3,750 for his Sunday efforts.

In our $1,500 Guaranteed Exacta Box game, winner Stephen McNatton totally whiffed on Camp Creek. But these exacta box games are a different animal, and here it was McNatton’s $83.50 exacta (for $1) on the first contest race (MTH R6) that did the major damage en route to his victory, which was worth $600.

In our Horse Player World Series entry-only qualifier, Joseph Muzio eschewed Camp Creek but racked up six winners at prices ranging from $6.60 to $31.20 to take one package. Tye Brown won the other package. He was the only player out of 52 to pick Camp Creek, and he added a couple of other 4-1 winners to his mix just for good measure. Honorable mention also to 3rd-place finisher Stephen McNatton. Some say it’s not easy to do well in both a conventional win-place game and an exacta box tourney on the same day, but Stephen did just that.

Good luck to you this week in your upcoming contest endeavors. As the rest of the sport obsesses over the Travers, may you scope out that cap horse that makes the week truly memorable!

For the second consecutive year, HorseTourneys.com will be offering online qualifiers to the Keeneland BCBC/NHC Challenge, which will take place this year on Sunday, October 16, at Keeneland Racecourse in Lexington, Ky.

The Keeneland BCBC/NHC Challenge is a high-end, live-bankroll contest that will award up to six qualifying seats to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC), up to six berths to the Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship (NHC) and prize money. Participation at Keeneland will be limited to 150 entries with a maximum of two entries per person.

The first online qualifier at HorseTourneys will be held on Sunday, August 28. It will carry entry fees of $160, and will award one $3,000 entry to the Keeneland contest plus an additional $500 in travel expenses per each 25 entries participating in the qualifier. The first qualifier is already selling quickly and is expected to award a minimum of three packages to the event. Low-cost direct feeders to the August 28 qualifier are running now at HorseTourneys.com.

Qualifiers to the Keeneland contest are expected to continue each weekend at HorseTourneys through the weekend of October 8-9.

Questions should be directed to HorseTourneys Customer Support at support@horsetourneys.com.

August weekends are always big at HorseTourneys and especially when they involve NHC qualifiers. But first things first.

Our Friday prelude to Saturday’s NHC bonanza comes in the form of a pair of nice, guaranteed cash games: a $5,000 multi-track game that pays to 4th and has $2,500 reserved for the winner. And a $1,000, Saratoga-races-only event paying down to 7th with $425 to the winner. Again, these games are both guaranteed, so value hawks will want to be watching entries for these two very closely.

Saturday’s highlight, of course, is our NHC qualifier with three seats guaranteed and a fourth possibly available depending on participation. Winners receive a seat, hotel plus $1,000 in travel…all for just a $160 entry fee. You won’t find a lower takeout rate/price point at any non-ADW NHC qualifying site.

There’s also a $97 live-format qualifier for a full package to the Orleans Fall Classic with winners getting a $500 entry plus $750 in travel.

Cash game specialists have two great options to pick from: our $25,000 Guaranteed game (live format) that pays down to 8th with $12,500 up top for just $260 (representing an industry-low 9.3% takeout)…and/or our $12,500 Guaranteed Pick & Pray that day for $195 that pays to 6th and reserves $6,250 for the winner.

There’s also a Pick & Pray feeder to the following day’s The BIG One qualifier for $106. One of every five players will advance to the following day’s $478 gateway game.

Here’s a more visual summary of Saturday’s prime events:

Sunday’s marquee game (as you probably surmised) is our The BIG One qualifier (a Pick & Pray). With 40 of 50 online seats already spoken for, there are now only 10 seats left to be won here for this high-expectation event at Laurel on Sept. 24-25.

Also on tap for Sunday is an entry-only, Pick & Pray qualifier to next year’s Horse Player World Series for $87.

Though cash gamers may prefer our $7,500 Guaranteed Pick & Pray game paying to 5th with $3,750 to the winner for $190…or our live-format $1,500 Guaranteed Exacta Box game where you get to pick three horses per race (a three-horse box) instead of one. This tourney carries a price point of just $54 with prizes down to 5th and $600 to the victor. As mentioned many times in the past, these exacta box games are a lot of fun. There are no price caps and you just never feel like victory is ever out of reach.

Here is an info-packed peek at some of Sunday’s top games:

We also want to give you an early heads-up that our first qualifier for the Del Mar Fall Classic will take place a week from Sunday on August 28. Winners (1 per 25) will receive a $4,000 entry plus $500 in travel reimbursement. Cost for the August 28 direct qualifier is $212 and between now and then we are running feeders to August 28 for just $47.

Whichever tourneys you choose this weekend, we wish you good fun and good racing luck!

I had the privilege of traveling North to the Battle of Saratoga last Wednesday and Thursday and back down South for the big 10-seat NHC qualifier at Monmouth on Saturday. It was a pleasure meeting so many HorseTourneys players and getting to put faces with names. Here are some impressions from the three days at the track:

Most players already know that the New York tourneys are a great deal due to New York State law, which requires that 100% of all monies taken in be returned as prizes. And this doesn’t even take into consideration tourney seats. NYRA paid for the four NHC seats and two BCBC spots out of pocket. So it was a positive expectation event for the players.

It was also a positive expectation event for manufacturers of anti-perspirant. Boy, was it sticky there. Fortunately Donny Nelson and the NYRA staff did what it could to keep people as comfortable as possible in the upper Carousel (not sure if they still call it that anymore). All in all, it was a very well-run event. There was a very low reading on the Complaint-O-Meter. Special kudos to the unsung guys who kept the water, iced tea and lemonade jugs filled at all times. I made about 35 trips there over the two days and never once came up empty. And that was with a player contingent of 205 on Wednesday and 210 on Thursday.

I heard a few grumblings about the shift to a live-bankroll format but none whatsoever about splitting the two-day tourney into a pair of one-day tourneys.

For a while there, it didn’t look like the split was going to make any difference. Incredibly, the winner of Day 1, Mark D’Amato of Green Bay, Wisc., was leading for about the first half of Day 2 as well. D’Amato’s approach was very straight forward. Win, place, show, exacta and trifecta bets were permitted and D’Amato stuck (for virtually the entire two days) with playing $60 (the typical race-to-race bet size in this contest where bankrolls started at $600) cold trifectas on a single combination. He hit 2 such plays on Wednesday to win that day, and started out hot doing the same thing Thursday before he was done in by a cold streak and some other players really stepping up their bet size on Day 2. The most successful of these plungers was Scott Carson of Publichandicapper.com. He wagered his entire bankroll of about $1,700 on Thursday’s final race, and he connected with one of his plays — a $500 cold exacta that he had envisioned as a saver. (Nice saver!)

They say it doesn’t make sense to take a knife to a gun fight. My takeaway for the two days at the Spa it might just be a good idea to take swings at the most lucrative bet types available within the rules of a given tourney (i.e. trifectas in this case) unless your bankroll is so big that you can get away with making safer plays. D’Amato obviously did this right from the get-go — eschewing the $60 water-treading show bets that many others opted for early on. His competition played, collectively, more conservatively. But they all seemed to catch on part way through Day 2 as word continued to spread about the guy crushing cold tris. Plays got bigger and bolder as it became clear that even a sizable straight bet wasn’t going to get the job done. Scott Carson’s ultimate winning play may have been on an exacta, but it was a $500 exacta — the type of play that probably wouldn’t have been feasible earlier in the day due to a combination of bankroll size and in-game strategy. The exacta return of $14,875 was plenty big enough to win the contest, but if Carson, in 15th place at the time, had only been able to afford (or only had the guts to play) a $50 or $100 unit on his exotic wagers, he too probably would have needed to opt for the trifecta.

The temperatures were even hotter, and the humidity even more oppressive on Saturday at Monmouth. Fortunately the Monmouth facility offered its players an ample choice of comfortable, air-conditioned rooms from which to play. The contest drew 166 entries, with the top 10 winning NHC seats plus cash from a prize pool. While I saw players there who hailed from coast to coast, the overall makeup of the contestants seemed a bit more casual than at Saratoga.

Only win, place and show wagers were allowed here with players (who started with a $200 bankroll) having to make at least 10 $20 plays at Monmouth and Saratoga, with at least five of those plays on Monmouth. As many of you know by now, the contest was put on its ear with the sudden announcement that Saratoga had canceled its card after the 5th race (of what was an 11-race card). By that time, Monmouth only had four races remaining.

I was tremendously impressed by the composure of the players while Monmouth officials huddled to decide what to do. Some players wanted Arlington added as a replacement track. Others felt it was fairer to just stick with Monmouth and Monmouth alone.

Ultimately Monmouth’s Brian Skirka (himself the picture of calm at all times) made what was a very well-received decision. Not wanting to hit unprepared players with a new track from out of left field, Skirka elected to just finish out the contest with Monmouth and waive the 10-play minimum as long as players had made at least five $20 Monmouth plays — which was the players’ responsibility all along and was unaffected by the Saratoga cancellation.

It was almost like one of those turbo poker tournaments where levels and blinds go up faster than normal. With so few races suddenly left, players instinctively knew that those high up the leader board now had an increased advantage. But with bet sizes now sure to increase due to a paucity of opportunities, players also knew that the three races still to come would mean a lot more than those that had already taken place.

The Monmouth main track on Saturday had a 24-karat gold rail with a bias pronounced enough that prices were hard to find. In the last race, Way to the Bank ran to his name, wiring the field from post 1 at a generous $6.80. HorseTourneys player Rob Ramirez from Ronkonkoma, NY saw the bias and put his entire $418 bankroll on Way to the Bank’s nose to win. The win boosted his winning bankroll to $1,421.70, which Rob won…along with a $9,800 first place prize and an NHC seat.

It turned out to be an excellent contest at Monmouth, but only because tournament officials and players kept cool heads and acted gracefully under pressure. There’s probably a lesson in here somewhere!

Juan Benedetti was in for $7,500 just eight days after winning at the $12,500 level. But this was no jam job…and fitness was clearly not in question.

As proof, the ultra-sharp Horse Tourneys cash game player won our $7,500 ($3,750 to the winner) Guaranteed tourney just a week and a day after winning our $12,500 Guaranteed game on Saturday, August 6. Look for Benedetti to “step up in class” for our $25,000 Guaranteed tourney coming up this Saturday, August 20.

Sunday was our last chance qualifier for Indiana Grand’s first-ever NHC tournament (they’ll be giving three seats away in Shelbyville on August 20). David Browning and Samuel Alipio were our two winners yesterday and they’ll both be heading to Indiana Grand with not one but two entries at their disposal. We wish Indiana Grand the best of luck with its event on Saturday, and hope that it becomes a regular fixture on the annual brick-and-mortar contest calendar.

The BIG One filled its 39th and 40th available seats on Sunday in our Two-Seats-Guaranteed qualifier. Ryan Steigmeier and Michael Caposio were our two top finishers and both will be heading to Laurel on a full ride on Sept. 24-25. Just 10 more seats remain available in online tourneys for this high-expectation event, so be sure to play in our The Big One qualifiers the next few Sundays.

We also held an entry-only Horse Player World Series qualifier on Sunday with the top two finishers winning seats. It, like each of the above three tourneys mentioned, was a “Live Format” tourney. The going-away winner was Vince LaRocco who posted a monster score of $124.40. Second was our The BIG One runner-up Michael Caposio and you will note that his scores in each tournament were identical — $83.80. Further investigation reveals, as you might have guessed, that Michael used the exact same picks in both tourneys.

Either Michael had outside obligations that precluded him from monitoring the tournament in real time, or he just got on a roll and figured he would stick with his first hunches throughout.

In any event, it just shows that good picks are good picks — and during those times when life inevitably gets in the way of our horseplaying, you don’t have to limit yourself to Pick & Prays. Live-format tourneys are winnable too.

Congratulations to Michael and to all of this weekend’s winners. Check in here tomorrow for musings about this past week’s Saratoga and Monmouth on-site tourneys.