Sunday belonged to the Easter Bunny but Saturday belonged to Darryl Lacy.
Taking an aggressive, multi-table approach even though it was a live-format weekend, Lacy signed up for two entries in each of six different featured tourneys—and entered the same two sets of picks in all six contests. One of his entries accumulated only about $30…no good. But his other garnered a very solid $84.20.
The big HorseTourneys news of the week is that the winner of this year’s The BIG One will now be eligible for a $500,000 bonus should he or she win the NHC. It’s the second significant bonus announced this year by HorseTourneys. The other was a $10,000 site credit bonus should any HorseTourneys qualifier go on to win the Del Mar Handicapping Challenge. And—sure enough—we have direct qualifiers coming up on Sunday for both The BIG One and the Del Mar Handicapping Challenge.
The BIG One just got bigger.
HorseTourneys announced today that it will pay a $500,000 bonus to the winner of the 2017 The BIG One should that player go on to finish first in the 2018 National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) Presented by RTN, Stats Race Lens and Treasure Island. And we’re not talking about an annuity. The bonus would be paid in a lump sum of $500,000.
I had opined in a recent weekend recap that Eric Moomey would probably be sorry to see March come to an end.
Maybe not.
It has to be a big weekend when we can put together a 12-race featured schedule consisting entirely of stakes races, and that’s the case this Saturday when our main events will be geared around four stakes each from Aqueduct, Keeneland and Santa Anita—including the Wood Memorial, Toyota Blue Grass Stakes and Santa Anita Derby. And the odd thing is that, at least at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers, Sunday may be an even bigger day than Saturday.
FULL NELSON
The tournament belonged to Pete Puhich, whose two entries were third and seventh after Day 1, and first and second after Days 2 and 3.
In one of the great big-money handicapping tournament performances of all time, 59-year-old Pete Puhich of Renton, Wash., finished first and second with his two entries to win a total of $373,091.40 in the 2017 Horse Player World Series.
We found him!
Pete Puhich is in the ballroom today as he attempts to keep his two Horse Player World Series entries in the top two positions.
It was hard to imagine Peter Puhich improving on his Day 1 performance when his two entries finished Thursday in 3rd and 7th places. But that’s just what the Renton, Wash., resident did on Friday—registering the second highest Day 2 total on one of his entries, and doing well enough on his other to finish the day occupying the first and second positions in the overall standings.
On a day when longshots were in short supply, HorseTourneys qualifier Brett Wiener didn’t need them. The 50-year-old business owner from Clearwater, Fla., strung together a series of winning mid-priced horses to finish atop the heap of 571 entries after Day One of the three-day Horse Player World Series (HPWS) at The Orleans in Las Vegas.
HorseTourneys.com Blog 