One could not have faulted Anthony Mattera if, at some point, he had decided to never play in a HorseTourneys major event again. It’s not that the 40-year-old legal consultant in Palm City, Fla., did poorly in these big-money competitions. Quite the opposite. It’s just that they had a way of dealing Mattera some setbacks that would have challenged the resolve of even the most determined horseplayer.

The final day of May was a very good one for Steven Meier. Using mostly the same set of picks, he racked up three rewarding victories.

Memorial Day weekend wasn’t quite as…memorable…for Scott Fiedler as the August weekend in 2020 when he won $248,000 for capturing the 2nd annual Spa & Surf Showdown. But it was still a weekend to savor for the Long Island sports camp operator.

For most handicappers and racing fans, last week’s highlight was Preakness Day on Saturday. For Max Schnepf, it was the day after.

David Barnier was on a roll on Friday—and it continued right on into Saturday.

From 10 Friday contest races, Barnier landed on 5 winners and 2 runners up. All five of his winners paid double digits in the win hole. Three of the five paid $20.00 or more, including Santa Barbarian ($29.80, $12.00) in the opener at (appropriately enough) Santa Anita.

Michael Caposio is a busy guy—but he has a “system”.

The Temecula, Calif., car dealer likes to multi-table his selections when he plays, but even when our featured tourneys are hosted in Live-format—as last Sunday’s were—he enters all his picks at the beginning of the day and does not change them. He approaches the games like they are Pick & Prays.

There were so many prolific winners last week that it’s a little hard knowing where to begin. But we’ll start with the feat that used to be almost impossible—but has become slightly less impossible in recent times.

By winning $131,250 in last weekend’s Players Championship, Brian Graziano added his name to the very short list of those who have won “majors” at HorseTourneys. He doesn’t see himself quite fitting into that group, however.

Trailing by $34.30 with just Sunday’s 12th race at Santa Anita remaining, Brian Graziano of Manahawkin, N.J., made his final mythical win-place wager on 11-1 shot Kawazaki. When the son of Holy Roman Emperor prevailed in deep stretch by a neck and paid $24.60 to win and $11.40 to place, it moved Graziano from third place to first—just $1.70 ahead of runner up Evan Trommer, who had spent much of the Players Championship’s Day 2 atop the leaderboard.

Thanks to our friends at Breeders’ Cup, HorseTourneys is delighted to offer — for the first time ever — a special, high-end Pick & Pray tourney focused on horse racing’s championship weekend. Appropriately enough, we are calling it the Breeders’ Cup Pick & Pray.