When Terry Cook won back-to-back handicapping contests against big fields this summer at Saratoga, it was hailed as a major achievement. On Saturday, Cook went one better, connecting for the three-peat at Aqueduct, his third straight win in a NYRA event.Cook compiled a bankroll of $2,277 on Saturday over the one-day Aqueduct Challenge. The Baltimore native, who routinely plays tournaments with partners Mark Komen, Mark Saperstein, and Bob Schmidt, deployed the same strategy that has garnered wins in the last three NYRA live-money handicapping tournaments.“We use the same strategy we use in every cash tournament,” said Cook. “We try to hit one big bet.”Cook and his partners capitalized in Race 6 on Saturday’s card at the Big A cashing in on a $20 12-9 exacta box, with $55 winner Time on Target over post-time favorite Unleveraged.“That race put us on top, returning $2,000, and we just shuffled our way from there watching everybody else to hang on,” said Cook. “We got the 20-1 shot easy enough, but then we had to sweat the 3-5 Chad Brown horse for second.”It’s important to note that while Cook has partners, he was the only one of the group who played an entry in the Aqueduct tournament, and that was also the case at Saratoga (in all three instances he played the maximum of two entries). At bigger tournaments, sometimes his partners also will enter under their own names.“We’ll sit together and handicap the races together and sometimes we’ll have a piece of each other, 10 percent like in a poker tournament,” Cook explained, “but we don’t collude.”For his efforts, Cook kept and his bankroll and won $7,613 in total prize money, plus a seat to the National Horseplayers Championship.For a guy who has had a lot of success this year, Cook hasn’t played in all that many contests. “I don’t have the bankroll some guys have,” he said. “I started playing at Delaware and Laurel, and then I started to qualify for tournaments online. But I’m way better at a live cash tournament than I am having to pick 15 winners [in a mythical event].”Cook has been playing since he was a boy. “My grandfather got me into it when I couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7,” he said. “He and my grandmother used to get dressed to the nines and on Saturday night we’d go to Charles Town or Shenandoah, whatever was running. I’d make $2 show bets through the night and my job on the way home was to talk to my grandfather and make sure he stayed awake.”It’s been a magical year for Cook, and he’s hoping he can keep it going. “It’s just like the poker room: When everybody walks out they have a story,” he said. “Everybody gets a turn to win and sometimes you can get on a little roll.”Two more get WCH seatsSaturday’s Grade 1 qualifier for the World Championship of Handicapping attracted a strong field of 25 entries, meaning two would win seats to the $1 million, no-takeout WCH finals which take place online at DRF Tournaments Feb. 3-4.Those seats went to two familiar names in the contest world, veteran Sean Nolan, who has achieved success in some of the country’s biggest tournaments, and Chris Fallica. Fallica, better known as “The Bear” from ESPN’s College Gameday, has become a mainstay on the contest scene in recent years, with his passion for racing nearly matching his love of college football.Nolan and Fallica seized control of the contest in the very first race, as they were the only two in the contest to connect with Time on Target ($60.80 win-place combined) in Aqueduct’s sixth race. Bill Mott’s second-time starter broke on top from the far outside in the field of 12 and never looked back. The son of Distorted Humor out of an Arch mare sold for $450,000 at the Keeneland September sale in 2016. From there, Nolan managed three more collections, the longest of which was Fire Away ($16.30) in the Artie Schiller Stakes. He ended up with $96.10, nearly $14 clear of second. Fallica hit in two more races, with Will Did It ($10.10) in Aqueduct’s seventh and Smart Knows Smart ($11.80) in Del Mar’s fourth.Contest action returns to DRFT on Wednesday. There are free games both Wednesday and on Thanksgiving where players can start their journey to the World Championship of Handicapping. Next weekend’s featured event is another Grade 1 qualifier for the WCH, where players put up $580 and one in 10 will win their $5,000 seats to the finals.For a full list of all the games available, go to tournaments.drf.com.