It’s Memorial Day Weekend, which means four days of featured-tourney action instead of three. All counted, we have 25 different big-prize events this weekend—which I believe is a HorseTourneys record. The star of the weekend, however, is not the largesse, but the return of an old friend…one that many of you said you missed. The All-Optional Format.
The bad news for us here at HorseTourneys was that Saturday’s $75,000 Guaranteed tourney didn’t quite fill. The good news for you is that a guarantee is a guarantee and, of course, we paid out the full amount despite taking a loss. And we’re game enough (some might say foolhardy enough) to do it all over again on Belmont Stakes Day. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let’s take a look at the Preakness Day victory that put $30,000 into Clint Littlejohn’s pockets last weekend.
The Preakness will miss the presence of Country House and Maximum Security, but everyone seems to agree that the baker’s dozen that were entered for Saturday’s middle jewel of the Triple Crown make for a wide open and intriguing betting race. That race serves as the anchor leg of the Saturday featured contest races, and it could make tens of thousands of dollars of difference to you in our special Preakness Day $75,000 Guaranteed, No Limit cash game.
Impressive performances abounded during the sandwich weekend between the Derby and Preakness. Arguably the closest, most exciting finish, though, took place right off the bat on Friday.
We’re already very excited for Preakness Day. Country House and Maximum Security won’t be there, but our $75,000 Guaranteed tourney WILL be. Feeders to this $495 buy-in game continue all weekend long for as little as $27.
You can like the final result or not like it, but it’s safe to say we won’t be forgetting this Run for the Roses anytime soon.
Because the Kentucky Derby took place on Saturday and an unexpected cancellation at Belmont knocked out too many contest races on Friday, all of the weekend’s featured-tourney action (10 events) was compressed into Sunday—and that was just fine with Tony Martin.
We know you will be understandably focused on the Derby this Saturday, and since we are not able to offer Churchill races, we have diverted all of our weekend featured events to either Friday or Sunday. It’s not exactly an even split, though. One of the “featured eleven” will go Friday and the rest on Sunday. Let’s start at the beginning.
As contest players, many of us have been conditioned, out of necessity, to zero in on a single horse that we like best in a race and make that our selection. That type of thinking doesn’t seem to hold much sway with respect to people who provide their analysis each year of the Kentucky Derby. The general mindset seems to be more like, “Use ‘em all!”
Weekend two-baggers are always impressive—and doubly so, in my mind, when they don’t occur on the same day. We had a couple of those last weekend.
