An amazing run for Canadian horseplayers continued this weekend at the Horse Player World Series in Las Vegas. Bob Montgomery, 54, an accountant from Ottawa, Ontario, finished first at the end of a three-day marathon at the Orleans. His final score of $2,924.20 was best in the field of 428 entries and netted him $234,972, including a bonus for day money on Saturday. Montgomery credited Quip’s win in the Tampa Bay Derby with putting him over the top. Another key moment came at the end of Day 3 when Montgomery blocked his closest competitor, McKay Smith, by playing 6-1 shot Sekhmet’s Revenge in the last race. The last two National Horseplayers Championships also were won by Canadians – Ray Arsenault in 2017 and Chris Littlemore earlier this year. The total purse of the HPWS was $577,800. Rounding out the top five were Smith ($86,670), John Louis ($40,446), Brent Sumja ($28,890), and John Melting ($17,334). Meanwhile, former NHC champ Jim Benes won Sunday’s Ultimate Betting Challenge, a live-bankroll handicapping contest held at both Santa Anita and Gulfstream. Benes is a professional player who focused on the Chicago circuit for many years but has given more attention to California recently. That familiarity paid off Sunday, when he finished with a bankroll of $32,341. He’ll keep that amount, plus $25,000 in prize money and a $12,000 seat to the Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship. Second-place finisher Tony Zhou finished with $28,731, good for a Pegasus seat and an extra $14,000. Zhou, who qualified for his UBC seat via DRF Tournaments, is making a habit of high-up finishes in live-bank events and seems poised to break out with an outright win at some point in 2018. Third place went to former HPWS champ Jim Meeks. He also gets a Pegasus seat, plus $10,000, in addition to keeping his $23,170 bankroll. For more info on the top 10 in the UBC, go to http://www.santaanita.com/handicapping-contests. Also this weekend, Karen Casey won the Gotham Challenge at Aqueduct. She hit a $10 trifecta in the feature race that returned $5,695. She receives $5,000 in purse money plus a seat to the 2018 Belmont Stakes Challenge. Saturday’s biggest winner on DRF Tournaments was Garett Skiba, who won a $5,000 seat to the World Championship of Handicapping. Skiba, among the most decorated tournament players of all time with six cashes of more than $100,000, was tops in the field of eight with $74.20. He went back to back in the middle of the contest with $20 returns from Determinant and Nephew Howard D, then sealed the deal with his selection of Accelerate ($10.80) in the Big Cap. Also on Saturday, Mike McIntyre ($140.80) and Steve Kinnison ($108) each won into the Keeneland Grade 1 Gamble from a 27-entry event. McIntyre ripped it up on the day with five cashes, four of which were $20 or higher and the longest of which was Quip ($54) in the Tampa Bay Derby. On Sunday, Shawn Turner, of San Diego, became the first player to qualify for the first World Horseplayers’ Tour event, to be held at Santa Anita over Preakness weekend. Turner started off ice cold, missing in the first five races before catching fire. He cashed in five of the last seven races, the longest price coming via Princess Kendra ($46.60) in Santa Anita’s sixth race. Feeders for the WHT/SA event, which features a fully added purse and will be filmed for a TV pilot, will resume Wednesday. Two new tournaments have been added to the DRF inventory. Feeders and qualifiers for NYRA’s Wood Memorial contest are now live on the site, as are feeders and qualifiers for Monmouth’s Pick Your Prize contest, which will be held June 2 live at the New Jersey oval. For a full list of everything going on at DRF Tournaments, go to tournaments.drf.com.