More than 600 contestants are once again expected to vie for the title of Horseplayer of the Year when the 27th National Horseplayers Championship begins its three-day run Friday at the Horseshoe Las Vegas in Nevada.
The exact number of contestants and entries weren’t to be pinned down until Thursday night, after the completion of a massive contest that will award dozens of seats to this year’s NHC and next year’s championship. Officials for the National Thoroughbred Racing Association estimated that the “Last Chance, First Chance” tournament on Thursday will draw approximately 1,000 entries.
The National Horseplayers Championship has become the most prestigious handicapping tournament in the United States, and perhaps the world, over the past two decades. This year, the winner is expected to receive a first-place purse of at least $825,000. The total prize pool this year will be in excess of $5 million, an amount that includes the airfare and accommodations awarded to the contestants for their stay in Las Vegas.
As of Wednesday morning, according to NTRA senior vice president Keith Chamblin, a total of 157 players had double-qualified, meaning they will be able to play two entries. The field at that point also included 117 first-time qualifiers, Chamblin said.
This year’s tournament will follow the same format as the contests held over recent years. Under that format, the field is gradually whittled down to a “Final Table” of 10 contestants, who will compete for the top spot on Sunday.
The Final Table itself will be determined after the top 10 percent of players on Saturday night compete in a runoff on Sunday morning.
Under the contest rules, players make mythical win and place wagers on races from an array of tracks selected by the contest organizers. Some of the races are mandatory for all players.
While the odds are against it, last year’s winner, Dan Piazza, will try to become the first player to ever win the NHC twice. Piazza, who owns a financial planning firm with his wife in Chicago, won by a narrow margin last year, taking home the final prize of $825,000 and setting off a whirlwind year that included a 20th-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, the biggest live-money tournament of the year.
“The last year has been very exciting,” said Piazza, who is 66.
Piazza first got interested in racing when attending his first Kentucky Derby in the 1980s. He now runs a syndicate, Crown’s Way Racing, which races horses in Kentucky and Illinois and has five 2-year-olds entered in the sales later this month in Ocala, Fla.
Piazza first started playing in handicapping tournaments eight years ago. He qualified for the NHC for the first time in 2022 but hadn’t cracked the top 100 in any of his previous appearances.
“That would be over the top,” Piazza said, when asked about winning the NHC a second time. “It would be a fantastic and humbling moment to be in that room with all those great handicappers. [And] it would make my wife very happy, like, we could finish the rest of the house.”
Team DRF
Daily Racing Form is back as a sponsor of the NHC this year, and the company has assembled a group of 25 handicappers who will be featured during social-media posts and live streaming coverage as “Team DRF.” The members were identified as some of the company’s “most engaged customers.”
“We’re trying to build community around them and recognize them as a thank-you for being such loyal DRF customers,” said Tom Quinones, DRF’s director of digital marketing.
Progress reports on the Team DRF members can be found on DRF’s social-media channels, as well as during livestreams that will be running on the YouTube channels of DRF and America’s Best Racing.
The livestreams will start at 4:30 p.m. Eastern on Thursday to cover the Last Chance, First Chance Tournament; at 1 p.m. Eastern on Friday to cover portions of the first day of the NHC; and at 5 p.m. Eastern on Saturday, as the field attempts to make the final 10 percent cut on Sunday morning.
Live coverage of the entire Final Table will run for four hours on Sunday, starting at 2:30 p.m. Eastern.
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