With the 2021 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge now in the history books, we can now—at least for the time being—narrow our focus to seats for NHC, the $250,000 Guaranteed Flo-Cal Faceoff, the Thanksgiving Weekend contests at Hawthorne and, of course, the always popular prize of…cash.

Sometimes we’re trained to think that to prevail in a big-day tourney, you almost have to sweep the card. That’s almost never the case, of course, and in our richest event of Breeders’ Cup Weekend, it wasn’t the case at all.

We have so many cash tourneys on Breeders’ Cup Friday and Saturday—between two-day games, single-day full-card events and early/late card competitions—that you can really tailor your play to which races you like the most. 

We’d call Brian Chenvert’s Saturday a year-maker, but that would be pretty unfair to him because the Minnesotan seems to have these days every couple of weeks.

The Breeders’ Cup—and, therefore, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge—begins a week from tomorrow at Del Mar. As some handicappers begin studying the pre-entries released yesterday, others are poring over the PPs of Belmont, Keeneland, Woodbine and Santa Anita. Why? Because those are the tracks that will supply the featured-tourney races this weekend for the seven separate direct qualifiers on offer this Friday, Saturday and Sunday at HorsePlayers.

In the old days, D, Wayne Lukas used to run three-horse coupled entries in races like the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (See 1985.) This year, after the results of this weekend’s tourneys, that may be Eric Kurzhal in the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.

With the Breeders’ Cup just a couple of weeks away, Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifiers at HorsePlayers are more popular than ever…so we have five of them (all guaranteed) this weekend.

Of the 25 featured tourneys from last week that we will recap here, there were 39 grand prizes earned. They were won by 37 different people in what was something of a “Share the wealth” week. 

In the next couple of weeks, the Santa Anita Closing Day Challenge (October 31), the first-ever BCBC Last Chance tournament (Thursday, November 4 at Del Mar/Xpressbet) and the popular Treasure Island Wager to Win event (November 5) will all take place. You can take your first crack at winning a seat to one or all of the above tests starting this weekend.

Have you yet to qualify for next January’s NHC? If so, you may want to make plans to play in the special Sunday $165 guaranteed qualifier at HorsePlayers that is restricted to those who have not yet earned a 2022 seat to the big dance. We call them “NHC Maiden Specials”…but if you win one of these, we promise you’ll feel like a graded-stakes winner.