Orleans Hotel July 4th Qualifying Handicapping Tournament-What A Day!

Friday the Fourth was a great day for the crew over here. I entered my first "real" thoroughbred handicapping tournament over at the Orleans Hotel. It was the Firecracker Qualifyer and it was very enjoyable and to say the least, very exciting! The entry fee was $100 and the idea was to finish in the top five to receive a free entry into the Horse Player World Series in 2009 where the payoffs can be huge. The format was to select 12 races with a mythical $20 win and $20 place bet and your total mutuel returns were added up to form your point total.

I knew going in that I would need somewhere between 1100 and 1500 points to have a chance so the handicapping strategy is a little different than in your every day approach because you have to look for horses with a good chance of winning at a very nice price. The first race that I selected for the contest proved to be the beginning of an emotional roller-coaster of a day. I used a first time starter with breeding that suggested that he may like the slop over at Churchill Downs where it was raining heavily and he came in and paid $21.40 and $11.40, good for 328 points. I knew if I could get two or three more of those in, I would cash and qualify for the big one. I stuck to my guns for the next hour or so using my original selections which were going off at nice odds, but kept running second and third by small margins mostly with 10 to 1 shots and higher. This was making the rest of the morning frustrating to put it mildly, but those place mutuels were good and they were adding to my point total which had grown to 516.0.

As the afternoon rolled along, some of my initial selections were getting bet down to unacceptable odds so I was looking for something that would get me one more huge point payoff. The sixth at Hollywood was coming up, a maiden race and I noticed that there was a first timer in there with Richard Migliore riding. After seeing that this horse was almost 20-1 and that the rest of the field was beatable due to unimpressive Beyers for the level and some other angles that I use in maiden races, I took a shot with Bella Dancer and "The Mig".

Going 5 1/2 furlongs, Richie broke this horse well from the number two post and gained the lead on the backstretch and she slowly edged clear from the favorite and began to open up in the stretch. What a moment as he drew away to win by almost six lengths. I did not hear anyone else yelling as loud as I was and of course, I was hoping that I was the only one that had her in the contest. The horse had gone off at 23-1 and paid $48.60 to win and $16.80 to place. The contest had a rule as far as capping anything over 20-1 after the first $2.00 of the bet, but it gave me an additional 594.6 points, bringing my total up to 1110.6.

I had one more selection going. It was in the Flawlessly Stakes. The horse was Ginger Pop and she was going up against Lethal Heat and several other exceptional fillies but she looked to me as though she could pull it off at 9-1. She finished second after running a great race behind Starry Pursuit and paid $9.80 to place making my final tally 1208.6.

I wound up finishing third in the contest and qualifying for the World Series, which was my goal for the day. It was a great event, very intense and a great learning experience along with one helluva ride on a wave of emotions. The folks over at the Orleans race book are first class and treated us all very well and the facilities are excellent over there for playing the horses.

See you at the World Series in February of 2009!

Joey D.