The plan was for Jobby Blevins to play in February’s NHC and for his wife Lisa to cheer him on as his “+1” in Las Vegas. That all changed last Friday…in more ways than one.
A dozen seats to the 2020 NHC are certain to be awarded here this weekend—eight in a single day…in a single tourney. That represents just a small fraction of the featured action, however, during the 52nd and final weekend of 2019. It all begins on Friday.
When it came to the NHC, Dane Moore entered December on the outside looking in. In fact, he wasn’t just outside…he was way down the street. He had just 3,500 or so Tour Points to his name but then the calendar flipped—and so did Moore’s fortunes.
Some people just go to church on Christmas and Easter, but we here at HorseTourneys surround ourselves in prayer on a regular basis…at least every other weekend! This weekend happens to be one of those Pick & Pray weekends—which could leave you more time for some holiday shopping. If nothing else, it will relieve you from worrying about whether you should change your picks as the horses are about to enter the starting gate. We have 24 featured tourneys this weekend—all but four of them of the “set it and forget it” variety.
We’re always impressed when a player has success on more than one day of the weekend. Horse Racing is a hard game in which to be consistent. We certainly do see multi-day weekend success from time to time, but I don’t think we’ve seen it much, if at all, across our Saturday-Sunday high-end cash games. That changed this weekend courtesy of Phillip Conway.
There are just 58 shopping days left until the 21st NHC. Actually, there are just 57…since, for some reason, no tracks are open on Christmas Day. As a public service to shoppers feeling under pressure, the NTRA this weekend is offering seven guaranteed spots at HorseTourneys/HorsePlayers to their big dance at Bally’s on February 7-9. We at HorseTourneys will augment those holiday offerings with cash games (more than $35,000 guaranteed this week) plus qualifiers to many other worthy events.
The holiday shopping season is suddenly in full swing (I’m already behind), and so is the contest qualifying season with the NHC and the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship not too distant on the horizon. Due in no small part to that, we set an unofficial record this weekend with 25 featured tourneys. I have the happy duty, of course, of reporting all the winners—the first five of which came on Friday.
We have 26 featured tourneys on the docket this coming weekend. That’s an unofficial record here at HorseTourneys/HorsePlayers. Included in the robust slate are first-chance qualifiers to the NHC Last Chance Tournament at Bally’s, the Tampa Bay Downs Handicapping Contest in January, this month’s Santa Anita Opening Day Challenge, next month’s NTRA/Santa Anita NHC Super Qualifier and the January 26 Sam Houston NHC Qualifier.
When you play in — or report on — enough contests, it’s easy to overlook how much a victory might mean to someone…especially when it’s not us doing the winning.
If you spent time with family and managed to travel to and fro safely despite some bad weather around the country, you had a pretty successful Thanksgiving weekend. If, at the same time, you managed to prosper in a handicapping contest, then you had an even more memorable weekend. Plenty of people did just that at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers, led by G.T. Nixon.
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