After delay, NHC makes its return

Delayed nearly seven months because of the coronavirus pandemic, the 2021 National Horseplayers Championship is scheduled to get underway on Friday at Bally’s Event Center in Las Vegas, Nev., with a field of 450 qualifiers and a total of $2 million in purses.

With COVID cases surging again in most parts of the country, 75 qualifiers for the event have been granted exemptions allowing them to transfer their qualifications to next year’s tournament, scheduled for Jan. 28-30. As a result, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association has also transferred $350,000 in prize money to next year’s tournament, as a concession to the fees generated by the qualifiers and the fact that next year’s tourney will have an overflow field.

“We felt it was only fair that next year’s tournament gets those additional dollars,” said Keith Chamblin, the NHC tournament director at the NTRA.

The NHC is the richest handicapping tournament in the world. The players who qualified for the tournament this weekend did so during the traditional calendar year, largely through tournaments conducted on-line due to restrictions on live attendance at most racetracks throughout last year.

Mask mandates are back in force in Las Vegas for indoor gatherings, and the NTRA has added 75 additional tables to the event center in order to maintain social distancing. Each table will have five entrants, though the tables could take additional players “as long as everyone at the table agrees,” Chamblin said.

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Approximately 100 qualifiers will have two entries this year, Chamblin said. The top 10 percent of the points earners on the first two days of the tournament will qualify for the “semi-final” round on Sunday morning. After the morning round, the field gets whittled to the top 10. All 10 players will required to bet seven assigned races to determine the winner, with points rolling over from the previous rounds.

First prize is estimated at $700,000, with $150,000 going to second place, Chamblin said. All players who finish in the top 10 percent will receive a minimum of $10,000, according to Chamblin.

The first-place purse was expected to be $800,000, but some of the transfer money came from the first- and second-place purses. Most of the players who received exemptions to transfer to next year’s tournament were “COVID- or medical-related,” Chamblin said.

“It’s going to be different this year, but we’ve done the best we can under difficult circumstances,” Chamblin said. “I can’t say enough about the patience that are players have shown this year.”