The BIG One has always been one of Ken Seeman’s very favorite tournaments. He has participated in all but two of them.

“It’s a small field in a big contest world,” he said. “You don’t have players throwing bombs left and right. And I really enjoyed playing it at Laurel with the camaraderie of that smaller group down there.”

One of the most respected competitors in the contest world, Ken Seeman of Wantagh, N.Y., added another entry to his impressive resume last weekend by capturing the 2021 renewal of The BIG One, which was held online at HorseTourneys for a second consecutive year.

With the top 15 players sharing in a cash prize pool currently at $159,000 (and growing) and the top 10 finishers also earning one of 10 seats to either the NHC, the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge or the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship—and the field (with each contestant playing just one entry) numbering just 57—The BIG One probably represents your best mathematical chance to enter an important contest and leave with a nice prize.

In terms of last-race drama, we couldn’t have scripted the Exacta Extravaganza much better.

In as contentious a race as you’re ever going to see, Dylan Donnelly, 30, of Alta Loma, Calif., saw two of his three exacta box horses—Hallie’s Hero (9-1) and Abbaa (also 9-1)—prevail in a five-horse blanket finish in the final race of the two-day, $50,000 Guaranteed Exacta Extravaganza, the 11th at Woodbine. The dueling 9-1 shots combined on a $1 exacta payoff worth $152.20, and that propelled Donnelly from 3rd-place to first—a distinction that came with a prize of $20,250.

Saturday marks the inaugural “running” of our newest guaranteed, multi-day cash tourney—the Exacta Extravaganza. 

It begins on Saturday, ends on Sunday, and the format is simple. For an entry fee of $500, you get to make a three-horse exacta box selection on every race of the Kentucky Downs and Woodbine cards on both Saturday and Sunday. It’s a live-format game, so you can enter your picks right up until “off time” if you wish. Also, it happens to be an HT Tour event, so if you are participating in that, there are points to be won if you finish in the top 10.

Despite a potential “NHC hangover,” players came out in full force during Labor Day weekend (and week). Some big prices along the way enabled several aggressive—and sharp—multi-tablers to visit the winner’s circle more than once on a given day. Meanwhile, a couple of players managed to have a couple of highly successful days.

As usual, the week’s featured-tourney action began on Wednesday.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, especially where Saratoga and Del Mar are concerned. We’ll try to keep the accent on the sweet—and not so much on the sorrowful—during a Labor Day Weekend that offers a rare HT Tour event on a Monday plus daily qualifiers to The BIG One and the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.

The eyes of the contest world will rightly be focused on this coming weekend’s NHC. But this Thursday’s Bally’s NHC First Chance/Last Chance tournament is a pretty big event in its own right. Thirty-five $500 entries to the traditional NHC Eve preamble flew out the door last week—including five on Wednesday.

With the record-breaking Spa & Surf Showdown now in the books and the ink barely dry on Randy Miller’s first-place check of $235,764, it’s time to redouble our focus on our next major event—the September 18-19 The BIG One, played once again in 2021 right here at HorseTourneys.

Most of the time Randy Miller, 67, is kept busy by his still-flourishing, one-man law practice in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, which is not far from Lancaster. Some of the time, he is busy with one of his favorite avocations—singing gospel music. And a little bit of the time, Miller indulges his longtime love of playing the races.

“Hey, Randy,” one of his horseplaying buddies quipped to him not long ago, “you need to get your priorities straight!”