Last weekend, Shawn Turner of San Diego became the first qualifier for the new World Horseplayer Tour/Santa Anita Preakness tournament. The tournament, which has all of its prize money-added, will utilize a unique format with a live-bankroll final table. Qualifying for the WHT/SA Preakness contest is available exclusively at DRF Tournaments. Turner, an aggressive player with a history of success in live-bank events, will definitely be one of the players to watch in the contest. Turner declined to reveal his age but said he’s been handicapping since his teenage years. “My uncle was a handicapper in Baltimore so I used to skip baseball practice in high school to go to Pimlico with him,” he said.His success comes via handicapping traditional past performances but also through his vast experience from observing and betting on races. “I use 10,000 hours of watching horses run in circles for my decision making,” Turner said, alluding to Malcolm Gladwell’s best seller “Outliers,” which cited 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” as the threshold for a person to truly become world class in any field.Turner has been involved in live-bank contests since their advent. “I was always just a fan of the live-money on-site tournaments,” he said, “but I do dabble in the mythical contests from time to time when the end prize is attractive.”It was a mythical online event on Sunday where he won his $5,000 buy-in to the WHT/SA Preakness event. Like many contest players, he plays with cash concurrently, and that left him in an interesting spot as the endgame approached.He took the lead in the contest before the eighth race at Santa Anita, but ended up rooting against himself. “I wound up needing Solid Wager” – a longshot – “to lock in a nice pick five score as I bought the final race,” he admitted. “The two contestants behind me both took the horse, so even though I wound up on the winner I was rooting with them for Solid Wager because the pick five was paying more than the $5,000 I was alive to in the contest.”He didn’t stay upset for long as he was excited to win his way into the Preakness contest.In addition to the specific value of the Preakness contest, Turner is a general fan of contests because of the range of players who can win. “Contests in general are more inclusive than a day at the races in terms of who is capable of having good days,” he said. He’s also okay with the fact that it’s difficult to win – between the level of competition and the difficulty of stringing good results together. He’s used to this from his cash play. “I personally don’t mind the sting of losing at a high percentage,” he said, “if the risks I’m taking give me a chance to win the big payoffs like the pick six.”Or a major live-bank event like the WHT/SA Preakness.Feeders for the next WHT/SA qualifier are happening every day on DRFT. Entries cost $54 and one in 10 will in their $458 entries to the April 7 qualifier. Go to tournaments.drf.com for a complete list of all the games happening at DRF Tournaments.