Tony Martin connected on a 64-1 longshot in Belmont’s final race on Saturday, and hit a 29-1 winner in the Sunday Belmont finale to power past his 54 opponents and win the 2019 renewal of The BIG One, held at Laurel Park on Saturday and Sunday. For the victory, the 51-year-old retired groundskeeper from Lexington, Ky., earned $27,000, a seat to the 2020 National Horseplayers Championship and a $10,000 entry to November’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
Bolstered mightily by Cirque’s 64-1 victory in the day’s final mandatory race, Bruce Pratt of Las Vegas and Tony Martin of Lexington, Ky., are the leaders in a field of 54 after the first day of competition at The BIG One, hosted by Laurel Park.
There was no shortage of winning long shots on Saturday and Sunday, which meant many paths to victory and a pretty even distribution of grand prizes even though it was a predominantly Pick & Pray weekend. Prices were harder to come by on Friday, however, which depressed scoring but did not depress the spirits of those who came upon the right horses.
There’ll be a lot of picking and a lot of praying going on this weekend at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers. All but four of our featured events are Pick & Prays, and the cash and prizes available are worth saying some prayers for as well.
Introducing the Flo-Cal Faceoff.
The newest big-money, online cash game at HorseTourneys will take place on Saturday and Sunday, February 29 and March 1, 2020. The Flo-Cal Faceoff is a two-day, all-mandatory tourney with a guaranteed purse of $100,000 and no limit as to how high the purse can grow beyond that guaranteed minimum. The buy-in is $1,500, and low-cost feeders will be hosted at HorseTourneys regularly between now and next February.
Once again, the top prizes were well distributed during the featured-tourney weekend—which might have been a bit less surprising this time around since most of the games utilized the live format. Only Frank Fosbre rang the bell twice. Though Jon Madden and Steve Arrison rang their lone bells loudly on Friday.
Chances to win seats to top contests abound at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers this weekend. When Dan Fogelberg sang about the “chance of a lifetime in a lifetime of chance”, he was referring to the Kentucky Derby in “Run for the Roses”. We wouldn’t exactly call this weekend’s tourneys the chance of a lifetime, but if you’re looking for handicapping fun, chances are your chances are awfully good (Johnny Mathis) right here.
Circumstances were ripe on Labor Day weekend from someone to go on a tear. Twenty-four featured tourneys were on the schedule and 18 of them were Pick & Prays. So one set of smart picks could theoretically do a lot of damage—especially since there were 41 first prizes to be had across those 24 featured events. And yet those 41 prizes wound up being shared as though they were handed out by Barney the dinosaur.
In the latest HorseTourneys podcast, Eric and McKay preview The BIG One at Laurel, review the recent survey results including payout cap amounts, Win/Place vs. Win/Place/Show and the All-Optional format. Plus, answering the first of player submitted questions. (53 mins)
We say goodbye to Saratoga and Del Mar after Monday—which is too bad. We say hello on Saturday to Kentucky Downs, though, and that’s good. The upshot of all of that is that we have a holiday weekend with great racing from several venues, so let’s enjoy it while we can. The featured-tourney fun—and there’s plenty of it—begins on Friday.
