As the two-day The BIG One was about to begin, Ted Apple smiled at his wife Cheryl and retreated to his upstairs “man cave” that he calls “The Paddock.” Cheryl knew that meant he had a contest to play, but Ted didn’t share any further details with her. “I didn’t want to say anything about the money involved, knowing how many really excellent horseplayers there were in it,” he said. “I was just hoping to finish in the Top 10.”
One of the biggest weekends on the HorseTourneys calendar is coming up with The BIG One taking place this Saturday and Sunday. A field of no more than 57 will compete for 10 seats to either the NHC, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge or the Pegasus World Cup (player’s choice) plus another five entries are up for grabs for the Horse Player World Series (or $1,500 in cash if the player prefers). There’s also a large chunk of cash on the line.
When you have as many as 28 featured tourneys in a five-day period, one of the fun by-products of that is that the door is opened wider for some interesting, out-of-the-ordinary results. We seemed to have more than our usual share of that last week.
Only five online spots remain for The BIG One next Saturday and Sunday. With 10 seats up for grabs to the NHC, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge or the Pegasus World Cup (winners get to choose!) plus another five entries on the line for the Horse Player World Series (or $1,500 in cash in the player prefers)…plus a cash-prize pool of $169,032…all being shared by a field of no more than 57, there is certainly a lot to play for next weekend. Seven seats are set aside for buy-in entries—which are priced at $7,500 each—but you can win one of the five remaining online spots for $395 if you succeed during this final weekend of qualifying.
Tracking all of the featured tourneys during Labor Day week was pretty…labor intensive…with 29 such events taking place from Wednesday through Monday. For many of our players, however, handicapping was a labor of love last week—and a rewarding one at that.
It’s Labor Day weekend coming up—which means it’s your last chance to play Saratoga and Del Mar for a while. And on Monday, you can become the first to qualify for the January 9-10 Flo-Cal Faceoff—a $150,000 Guaranteed event focusing solely on full-card racing from Gulfstream and Santa Anita. As announced just this week, the Faceoff, whose inaugural edition (worth $225,000) was won by Thomas Blosser of Cornville, Arizona, will serve as the first leg of the 2021 Tourney Triple series which offers a $2 million bonus should someone sweep all three legs, a $1 million bonus for winning two out of three and valuable tournament seats to the top three overall performers during the three competitions.
The summer is nearing an end but the winning continues at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers. Last week’s action contained a nice mix of new qualifiers and good, old-fashioned cash, NHC seats and BCBC entries. The featured-tourney fun began on Wednesday.
Could we already be nearing the end of summer? According to the calendar (which seems like a less believable companion this year), the answer is “Yes”. On what will be the final weekend of August, we have 19 featured events—including a last chance, a first chance and lots of fun stuff in between.
They say money goes to money. They also say when you’re hot, you’re hot. Whoever “they” is, they’re right because both of those things apply to Scott Fiedler.
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