On opening weekend of both the Saratoga and Del Mar meetings, our marquee tourney was Saturday’s $75,000 Guaranteed event. The $30,000 first-place finisher was Kirk Tesar of Plymouth, Indiana. And–perhaps in true Hoosier fashion–his victory was workmanlike rather than showy.
The weekend that so many look forward to all year—opening weekend at Saratoga and Del Mar—is here and HorseTourneys is marking the occasion with 19 featured tourneys, including a special 13-race, $75,000 Guaranteed tourney on Saturday that pays $30,000 to its skillful winner.
It’s an exciting time in horse racing this week with both Del Mar (Wednesday) and Saratoga (Friday) kicking off their much-anticipated 2017 meetings. And it’s an equally exciting time this week here at HorseTourneys. There’s so much that’s new or special or both that we thought a quick overview would be in order.
It was predominantly a Pick & Pray weekend, so it wasn’t shocking that we saw four multiple winners. However, three came on Saturday’s six-featured-games slate and just one on Sunday’s nine-tourney schedule.
As most of us know, some of the most finely-conditioned athletes you’ll find anywhere are horse racing handicapping tournament competitors. Why slow down and risk the rust of inactivity when there are contest seats and cash to be won? So while the weak and flabby Major League Baseball players have been busy resting all week, we at HorseTourneys are coming back at you with another robust weekend schedule of 18 featured tourneys.
A big-money, high-profile onsite handicapping tournament will again be taking place during the last weekend of January next year. But—for the first time in about 15 years—it won’t be the NHC.
Featured-tourney prize winners were well spread out last weekend. No one won two top prizes. However one player—Christopher Dewey—won three.
Congatulations to William Nefzger, winner of the 2017 Arlington Handicapping Challenge. Nefzger converted his starting bankroll of $2,000 to a final total of $10,926. He kept that amount and also won a $10,000 seat to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.
Matt Trommer, Nick Tammaro and Brad Anderson were 2nd , 3rd and 4th with totals of $10,612.45, $10,254 and $5,083, respectively. Thosee three all won seats to the NHC in addition to their bankroll winnings. Mike Yurczyk finished 5th with $5,047.90 and earned a Horseplayers World Series entry in addition to his mutuel tallies.
HorseTourneys qualifiers comprised 14 entrants among the field of 120. Rudolph Hardin was the highest-placing HorseTourneys representative, finishing 10th with a total of $2,773.75. There were seven HorseTourneys qualifiers who finished on the first page of the standings (top 43).
We’ve been champing at the bit to offer them, so we’re guessing some of you have been champing at the bit to play them. And now they’re here—our first qualifiers for one of the most anticipated racetrack tournaments of the year: the Saratoga Challenges.
We were back to predominantly Pick & Prays during the weekend of June 30-July 2. And, not too surprisingly, we saw a couple of players parlay one good score into multiple victories.
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