LAS VEGAS - After the last race of the Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship, Mark Lowe was leaving the Bally's race and sports book, just hoping he had finished in the top 20.

Lowe, the day one co-leader, selected 17-1 winner Alluring Bel in the 10th race at Santa Anita, but didn't think his total would be enough to qualify for a sizable prize. He had struggled most of the day and had dropped to 10th place after the most-recently posted scoring update two hours earlier. But, as he was leaving the tournament area, an NTRA official ran to find him.

NEW YORK - One of the more difficult components of handicapping is deciding what to do with horses who show sharp recent form in statebred races when they go up against open company.

LAS VEGAS - Ron Rippey, the handicapper for the Newark (N.J.) Star-Ledger newspaper, nailed a 17-1 shot in the last race of the tournament and dramatically defeated a field of 224 horseplayers in the $500,000 at Bally's Las Vegas on Saturday.

Rippey, from Wayne, N.J., receives the record NHC grand prize of $250,000 and the title Handicapper of the Year.

LAS VEGAS - Mark Lowe of Bayonet Point, Fla., and Leonard Wells of Ontario, Calf., were tied atop a bunched leaderboard of 225 players at the end day one of the $540,000 at Bally's Las Vegas on Friday.

Lowe, who qualified at Tampa Bay Downs, and Wells, representing the Golden State Rewards Network, both finished with $141.40. Each player earned $4,000 for having the top Friday score. Richard Murray, of North Hills, Calf., (Del Mar #2) ended day one in third with $137.40 and earned $2,000.

After a slow start to the Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship on Friday, with longshots few and far between, Mark Lowe of Bayonet Point, Fla., shot to the lead when Add Heat won Santa Anita's third race at 45-1, giving Lowe 121.60 points, ahead of early pacesetter Roger Warren Sr. of Fairhope, Ala., who was sitting at 109.50 through the contest's first six mandatory races.

LEXINGTON, Ky. - There is more future than ever in Pool 1 of the Churchill Downs Kentucky Derby Futures Wager, which opened on Thursday and closes at 6 p.m. Eastern on Sunday. That's because this is the first year that Pool 1 has been offered as early as January.

PHILADELPHIA - It was just going to be one of those casual racetrack lunches where every 20 minutes or so you would look up and see precisely how long it would take the usual Philadelphia Park fare to make it around the racetrack. I was there a few Mondays ago with one veteran horseplayer and one novice.

The money was pooled. I was in charge of all selections and all decisions.

I explained to the novice that this would be a high-risk, high-reward venture without really risking all that much or expecting much of a reward.

NEW YORK - The Sunshine Millions, the rotating series of eight stakes events for California- and Florida-breds at Gulfstream Park and Santa Anita worth a total of $3.6 million in purse money, dominates Saturday's stakes action. Santa Anita hosts the headliner, the $1 million Sunshine Millions Classic.

Sunshine Millions Classic

LAS VEGAS - First prize in the Daily Racing Form/National Thoroughbred Racing Association National Handicapping Championship, being held this Friday and Saturday at the Bally's race book, has been increased from $225,000 to $250,000.

LAS VEGAS - With the completion of my five-part series on this year's freshman sires last week, it seems fitting to announce who I think will be the top 10 first-crop stallions.

Picking young, unproven sires is always a tricky read, and while there will surely be stallions who will emerge as their offspring mature, going longer distances and also racing on turf at 3 and 4, the selections below are based on how the progeny of these sires will perform as juveniles.