Virtually every day at HorseTourneys, there are several Pick & Pray tournaments with solid prizes and high participation levels. And that is especially true on the weekends. This Saturday, for example, there is a Pick & Pray NHC qualifier with three seats guaranteed. There should be 200+ players for that one.

Like most people, whether playing in a tournament or straight up against the tote, I prefer to do my own handicapping and let my skill (or lack thereof) determine my results.

I will admit, however, that I can be a bit of an action junkie sometimes, wanting to make a play or two (or three or four) even when I haven’t had time to do any handicapping.

I know I am not alone there. An industry friend has commented to me how surprised he constantly is by people’s willingness to pay good money for other people’s picks.

What I prefer to do, though, is not to lean on a particular “favorite handicapper” (and certainly not to pay for his picks!) but, rather, to go to the Leaderboards section of an in-progress Pick & Pray event on HorseTourneys, and check out who the Top 10 in the standings like in any given race. If you’re going to, ahem, “consult” with an outside handicapper, doesn’t it make sense to do so with someone who is already having a good day and apparently “seeing the ball well”?

Sometimes the picks of the Top 10 in a given tourney will be all over the map. But it’s surprising how often the sharp players gravitate en masse to the same hidden-value, overlaid horse that plays well in a tournament…and also in a straight parimutuel situation. Available ($25.20 to win, $10.20 to place) in Laurel’s 6th race last Sunday was just such a horse. Obviously, he was 11-1 on the tote, but it was a big field and he was more like 2-1 among the leaders of that day’s The Big One Pick & Pray qualifier.

Yes, I know that the selections page of a Pick & Pray tourney can also be instructive to new players as a way of learning the types of horses experienced contest players like to play in a tournament setting. But I think the leaderboard pages have a value all their own in the cold, crass world of parimutuel wagering as well.

Is my “system” mindless? Absolutely. Am I glomming off other people’s handicapping efforts? 100%! Does that make me feel guilty? Hell, no! For me it’s part of the fun of the whole HorseTourneys experience.

Time is running out to qualify for the July 23-24 Del Mar Handicapping Challenge. Want in to the $7,000 mega-live-bankroll event? Then be sure to play in our Last Chance Del Mar qualifier this Sunday, July 17. You can win a seat + $750 in travel for just $360 in our Sunday qualifier, and we have low-cost feeders running every day ahead of July 17 for $40. Sign up now for your chance at entry into a lucrative tournament hosted in a terrific setting.

Your next chance to “get qualified” for the NHC comes this Saturday (7/16). We’ll be awarding a minimum of three NHC seats (guaranteed) and a fourth if we hit the 280-participant mark. Saturday winners will get four nights at Treasure Island plus $1,000 for travel. And, of course, NHC Tour points will be up for grabs as well. It’s always a great feeling to have your NHC seat locked up already as you head into the second half of the year. We are offering this week a wide array of $18 feeders into the NHC qualifier, plus several $40 “Combo Feeders” that will get you into not only the Saturday NHC qualifier, but also into our $15,000 cash game on Saturday.

Sunday is your next opportunity to win one of the exclusive seats available to The Big One on September 24-25 at Laurel. (There will be no more than 57 competitors at The Big One.) There are a plethora of ways to be part of the next The Big One qualifier: You can buy directly in on Sunday for $478. Or for $106, you could buy in to our Saturday (7/16) Round 2 feeder where one out of every five entries will advance. Or you could play in one of our numerous The Big One feeders this week where you could win a seat in the Round 2 feeder for $24 or directly into the Sunday qualifier for $53. It may be The Big One. But you certainly don’t need a “Big” budget to take your shot at winning a seat.

And we continue to offer seats to both the $200,000 Guaranteed Wynn Handicapping Challenge on August 5-6 and to the July 24 “Wynn Blowout”. Our next direct qualifier to the Wynn Handicapping Challenge (including entry fee, hotel credit and $500 travel) is this Sunday. Entry cost is $150. Of course, we are running $34 feeders all week for this. Plus we are running $26 feeders for the 7/24 Wynn Blowout which will offer one entry-only spot to the Wynn event per every 10 entries.

Of course the above represents just a few of the highlights of what will be a jam-packed, action-filled weekend of contest play. We’ll also again be offering full packages to the Battle of Saratoga, Monmouth, Gold Coast, Hawthorne plus all sorts of cash games including a fun Exacta Box tournament with a guaranteed purse of $2,000. For the complete menu of contests, go — as always — to the HorseTourneys.com home page. Good luck!

Congratulations to Chris Larmey and Sean O’Malley, who each qualified for the July 8-10 Surfside tourneys via our site and ultimately left Surfside Race Place with nice cash prizes plus an NHC seat.

Chris got things started on the right foot, finishing second in the Friday, July 8 event — good for $1,500 and the aforementioned NHC berth. Then on Sunday, Sean closed things out with a bang, finishing first and taking home $3,000 in addition to an NHC seat.

Perhaps it is worth noting that Chris and Sean were our final two Surfside qualifiers, so it’s never too late to turn HorseTourneys success into brick-and-mortar glory. With that in mind, remember that this weekend will be the last chance to qualify for Del Mar.

Congratulations again, Chris and Sean!

HorseTourneys cash-game players probably wish Sunday were more of a “day of rest” for Ed Peters. Just seven days after winning $3,750 for leading the way in our $7,500 guaranteed game on July 3, Peters cashed for $12,500 by posting the top score in yesterday’s $25,000 guaranteed game. The July 10 competition utilized our popular All-Optional Live format, which allows players to choose their 10 plays from among 20 eligible races. Peters used the strategy well, saving his last bullet for the final race of the contest (race 6 at SA). He deployed that pick on a horse that could have left him vulnerable to would-be leapfroggers. In the end, it didn’t matter…Peters had a large enough lead going in to that race that the 2-1 co-faves were both essentially “running for him” and one of them won, thereby sealing the deal on the second consecutive Sunday win.

On Saturday, July 9, we had a $7,500 game that Bill Ulrich captured after winning the last race. Clearly not the same player on Saturdays, Ed Peters was out of the money in this one!

The field for September’s The Big One grew by two on Sunday after Robert Gilbert and Norris Bristow garnered the top spots in our 2-seat guaranteed tourney. Gilbert and Bristow were like the lone speeds in a paceless race. They opened up a nice lead midway through the contest, while staying within a couple of bucks each other most of the time. Then they tired a bit turning for home, but had enough left to hold off all of the late closers. We’ll be giving away two more coveted seats to The Big One next Sunday.

All weekend long, HorseTourneys was busy sending its smart players to exciting tournaments from Coast to Coast and in between — to place likes Monmouth, Wynn, Gold Coast, Del Mar and Hawthorne. And Sunday marked our first time sending players to Saratoga where the “Battle of Saratoga” this year will be made up of two separate one-day competitions. HorseTourneys players responded to the Saratoga qualifier (and their preceding feeders) in big numbers last week, thereby allowing us to award no fewer than six full, 2-day packages to the August 10-11 events, plus an extra $750 for travel. Congratulations to winners Phil Lam, Dennis Dougherty, Cheryl McIntyre, William Payseno, Charlie Ricks and Randy Bauer. We’d love it if we had another six berths (or even more!) up for grabs this Sunday. Feeders run all week long.

Have a winning week.

Effective immediately, PayPal is once again available as a deposit and withdrawal option at HorseTourneys.  PayPal is available on the drop-down menu, listed among the other deposit options. Continue reading →

There is no more player-friendly tournament site for cash-game players than HorseTourneys. On Sunday, July 10 we’ll be hosting a big $25,000 game, which carries just a 9.3% takeout. The $25,000 pot is guaranteed, so if entries fail to live up to our predictions, it’s our problem, not yours! Last weekend, we hosted a $7,500 tourney that ran with a 4.4% overlay to players.

The $25,000 guaranteed tournament will be contested using the popular “All-Optional” Live format. Players will make their contest plays from among 20 eligible contest races. So no one has to play a race he or she doesn’t care for. Or you can simply use the flexibility to your strategic advantage, if you see such an opportunity. It’s all in your hands. Entries cost $128 with the top finisher receiving $12,500, and we will pay down to 8th place. Or you can try to win a place in one of our $29 feeders, which are available several times each day leading in to Sunday.

Another exciting competition on Sunday is the Battle of Saratoga qualifier — the first time a Saratoga qualifier has been available online. We’re running multiple feeders each day, which have been extremely popular — 39 have already won a place in our Sunday Spa qualifier heading into Thursday’s action. The feeders are just $28, or you can wait until Sunday and buy in for $128. We’ll be awarding a $1,000 seat to each day of the August 10-11 tournaments, plus a robust $750 in travel per every 25 Sunday entries. (We know that hotels can get a little pricey up in Saratoga Springs during the race meeting!) We’d like nothing more than to see HorseTourneys players win both days of the Battle, which will award NHC and BCBC seats along with its customarily generous cash prizes.

And this week marks our initial feeders (just $26) for our special Wynn Blowout tourney on July 24. In the Wynn Blowout, you can win an entry-only seat to the $200,000 Wynn Handicapping Challenge in Las Vegas. We’ll be giving away one seat for every 10 entries on July 24, so there will be a high strike rate for those who participate. Direct entries for the Blowout cost $230 but, again, you can qualify for as little as $26 by playing one of many Wynn Blowout feeders. The Wynn Handicapping Challenge is always on any serious contest player’s short list of highly desirable competitions on the calendar.

It was a busy — and even unprecedented — holiday weekend at HorseTourneys.

Bill Wilbur was responsible for the unprecedented part. He, along with Anthony Mattera and Anthony Trezza, won seats to the 2017 NHC on Saturday. But not only did Bill win a coveted NHC seat, he placed his two entries in 2nd and 3rd positions. No one has ever placed multiple entries in qualifying position at a HorseTourneys NHC qualifier before. And while NHC rules specifically prohibit a player from winning more than one NHC seat within a single qualifying competition, it takes nothing away from what was a remarkable contest performance by Bill.

Thanks to Bill — and also to Eric Moomey — we had to drill down pretty far to come up with our three NHC package winners on Saturday. For not only did Bill grab the 2nd and 3rd slots, but the already-dual-qualified Eric finished 4th. So that third available NHC seat went to 5th-place finisher Anthony Trezza. This pleased Trezza…and even made him feel a bit vindicated!

Sunday action was equally robust with players winning packages to The Big One, Del Mar, plus last-chance berths at Arlington and Surfside. It’s also worth pointing out that HorseTourneys players had the opportunity to play in a positive-expectation competition, with our Guaranteed $7,500 tournament operating at a 4% overlay to players. Ed Peters and Howard Welsh were the chief beneficiaries, winning $3,750 and $1,500, respectively.

Holiday Monday featured entry-only tourneys awarding seats to Wynn, Monmouth and Gold Coast plus a Guaranteed $5,000 contest. Mike Sylvester and Tom Bolek (Wynn); Jay Parker and Jason Phillips (Gold Coast); Susan Romeo and Adam Lewis (Monmouth) and Charles Browing ($5,000 tourney) were our major winners. But also exciting was the news that HorseTourneys would be qualifying players starting THIS WEEK to the August 10-11 Battle of Saratoga, which will now be run as two separate, one-day tournaments. Low-cost $28 feeders start today (Tuesday).

Good luck and hope to see you at the Spa!

Contact: Eric Wing             FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

914.772.3413
support@horsetourneys.com

SARATOGA CONTEST ENTRIES NOW AVAILABLE AT HORSETOURNEYS

July 5, 2016 – HorseTourneys.com will now be offering online qualifiers to both days of the “Battle of Saratoga” handicapping contests, to be held Wednesday and Thursday, August 10 and 11, 2016, at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, NY. It is the first time that the popular Battle of Saratoga will consist of two separate tournaments on back-to-back days – rather than a single two-day tourney.

The “Battle of Saratoga” competitions are high-end, live-bankroll contests that will award cash and qualifying seats to the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) and Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship (NHC).

The first online qualifier at HorseTourneys will be held Sunday, July 10. It will carry an entry fee of $128, and will award a $1,000 entry to both the Wednesday and Thursday contests at Saratoga, plus an additional $750 in travel expense per each 25 entries participating in the qualifier. The first qualifier should sell quickly and is expected to award multiple packages to the event. Starting today, low-cost, $28 feeder tournaments will run throughout the week, leading up to July 10.

Qualifiers to the Battle of Saratoga contests are expected to continue each weekend at HorseTourneys through the weekend of August 6-7.

Questions should be directed to HorseTourneys Customer Support at support@horsetourneys.com.

HorseTourneys.com is a leading operator of online-based handicapping tournaments in horse racing. HorseTourneys works in cooperation with the racing industry, with a focus on offering handicappers the opportunity to qualify to major handicapping tournament events at racetracks and casinos across North America. In operation since 2009, HorseTourneys is a trusted partner of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA), Boyd Gaming, Keeneland, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Arlington Racecourse, Monmouth Park, Hawthorne Race Course, Laurel Park, Wynn Las Vegas and other racetracks and gaming properties. The HorseTourneys website may be accessed at http://www.horsetourneys.com.

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Your next chance to get NHC-qualified at HorseTourneys comes this Saturday, July 2, with a live-format contest available at a player-friendly cost of $160. Three NHC seats are guaranteed and, depending on the number of participants, a fourth could be added. Winners’ packages include hotel and $1,000 for travel. And as an NHC qualfier, this July 2 tournament (Live format) will also offer coveted NHC Tour points. Also, up to 10 runners up will receive a paid entry to the next scheduled NHC qualifier on HorseTourneys.

Want an even more player-friendly deal? Daily feeders to the July 2 qualifier — in both Live and Pick & Pray formats — are running this week for just $18, and these feeders also offer a 10% entry rebate, meaning that these feeders carry NO takeout. Zippo. Nada. Bubkus.

The onus is still on you to pick some winners, of course, but you won’t find a more cost-effective way to compete for an NHC seat anywhere on the planet.

Make plans now to play in HorseTourneys’ big $25,000 guaranteed tournament on Sunday, July 10. You can buy-in on the big day for $260…or you can play in our daily feeders and earn your way in for as little as $29.

First place will be good for $12,500 with winners paid down to 8th place. And as you can always expect at HorseTourneys, takeout is an industry-low 10%. You won’t find a better deal anywhere.

This tourney will utilize the popular “All-Optional” live format whereby players select their 10 contest plays from among 20 eligible races.

Hate races that you think will come back chalky? Detest those occasional skullbusters where the more you study them, the more confused you become? No problem. Just skip ’em and move on to races you like better. Or you can simply opt to save your “bullets” for the tail end of the competition when you might have a better idea of what score it will take to win.

See you on July 10!