The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge is just over a week away, and so we are ramping up qualifiers to the world’s most prestigious live-bankroll tournament this Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Late on Day 1 of The BIG One at Laurel Park, Brendan Fay could be forgiven if he was starting to think of the two-day, $200,100 all-cash contest as The BIG Bust. His first 11 “$2.00-to-win-and-place” picks had yielded just a single, measly $5.20 place payoff. 

Last week’s featured tourneys tended to be very competitive, hard-fought battles. We didn’t see much in the way of multi-table success or game-crushing cap horses.

Qualifiers for the $200,000 Gtd. The BIG One are drawing to a close with the all-cash event taking place on October 21-22 at Laurel Park. You can compete for the cash—(and soak up the many amenities of the contest), but only if you qualify…or buy-in directly for $4,500. Your final weekend chances to qualify for $500 take place on Friday, with the first of three straight two-seats-guaranteed qualifiers.

It was quite a Sunday for Bob Schreiter.

There’s one tourney this weekend that almost all of you should enter, and that’s Sunday’s free NHC qualifier, which is open to all 2023 NHC Tour members. (If you’re not a member, you can still become one quickly and easily at NTRA.com).

This week, I was very careful to double-check that all of Kirk Tesar’s apparent victories were played through to the end of each tourney. It’s now official. After winning a seat to The BIG One (and just a seat to The BIG One) last week, the Hoosier came back strong with two featured-tourney wins this past week.

Santa Anita opens on Friday—which means the Santa Anita Opening Weekend Challenge (playable on-track or at Xpressbet) will take place on Saturday and Sunday. If you’re hoping to play in it, but don’t wish to pony up the $4,000 buy-in, then Friday is your final opportunity to win one of those $4,000 spots for $314.

Bombs were in short supply, so (despite the vast majority of features being Pick & Prays) there weren’t many multiple winners last week. There WERE a couple of them, however.

There will be lots of “Set-it-and-forget-it” action this weekend with 19 of our 20 featured events (all but the Sunday Big Bucks game) going as Pick & Prays.