It’s one of those weekends on the racing calendar that marks time in our heads even if we don’t know the precise dates. It’s the weekend that Belmont Park (Friday) and Churchill Downs (Saturday evening) open. And we have a bevy of important tournaments to properly commemorate the “weekend-before-Derby-weekend”.
Until further notice, HorseTourneys will not be including races run at The Stronach Group-owned racetracks in cash-game tournaments (contests that exclusively award cash prizes). We will continue to include races run at The Stronach Group tracks in feeders and qualifiers to industry-sponsored events, and we hope to again offer them in cash tournaments at some point in the future. We do, however, expect to include Pimlico races in our cash tournaments on Preakness Day, May 20.
Saturday and Sunday played out in entirely different ways at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers last weekend. On Saturday, the bulk of the rich prizes were won by a coterie of four. On Sunday, the in-the-money finishes were spread around like trophies at a youth soccer picnic.
(From Keeneland press office) – In the storied history of Keeneland Race Course, many patrons have had memorable (and profitable) weekends. We would venture to guess, however, that not many have equaled the weekend that Blaise Brucato just experienced at this venerable racetrack.
There’s a major twist to this weekend at HorseTourneys and HorsePlayers. Normally our biggest tourney of the weekend takes place on a Sunday. Some weeks it might take place on Saturday. But this week, Friday is the day you absolutely don’t want to miss.
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.
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