Los Alamitos

Orlando Gutierrez from Los Alamitos (right) congratulates tournament winner Rick Adams (left). Adams was the only one of 397 contest entrants to pick five winners in the six-race tournament.

Rick Adams, a retired police officer from Long Beach, Calif., topped a record field of 397 Los Alamitos contest entrants to win the Los Alamitos Regional Handicapping Contest. Adams earned first prize of $900 and also qualified to play in the sixth annual Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship to be held next January in Las Vegas.

The June 11 Los Alamitos contest consisted of six races, and Adams was the only handicapper in the 397-player field to correctly select the winners of five out six races to earn the victory. The contest, which included four races from Los Alamitos and two from Hollywood Park, was free to enter and offered a $2,000 prize pool as well as three DRF/NTRA qualifying spots.

Adams, 59, who has been playing the races for more than 40 years, credited a pair of trainer angles for his victory.

"I like to keep track of what jockeys trainers like to use when they feel they have a shot to win, and I like to know what trainers are willing to drop horses down in class in order to get a win," Adams said. "I am so looking forward to the DRF/NTRA National Handicapping Championship. It's going to be great fun."

Four players tied for second with four winning selections, but Salim Ed Hakim emerged as the Los Alamitos' runner-up via a tie-breaker that involved correctly selecting the exacta payoff in the contest's final race. Salim, a 67-year-old native of Beirut, Lebanon now residing in Anaheim, earned second money of $400 and qualified for NHC VI in Las Vegas.

Third-place and $240 in cash went to Steve Hendricks, a full-time horseplayer from Carlsbad, Calif. Hendricks also qualified for NHC VI and will be making his third national finals appearance. He finished 37th at NHC III after qualifying at the Surfside Race Place at Del Mar, and 42nd at NHC V as a member of the team from Turf Paradise.

The two players who had four winners in the Los Alamitos contest but lost the tie-breaker and failed to qualify were John Cammarello of Anaheim, and Roy Donovan of Sun City.