Hellmers sweeps Del Mar Challenge

The best résumé in the history of live-bankroll contests, if not all of tournament play, got a little better this weekend.

Christian Hellmers hit his own personal exacta in the Del Mar Challenge, running one-two. He netted a payday of more than $100,000 by running his two $3,000 starting bankrolls into more than $45,000 combined, $45,000 in prize money and two $10,000 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge entries. In addition, he is now eligible for a $1 million bonus should he go on to win the 2018 BCBC at Churchill Downs. This will be the second year in a row Hellmers heads to the Breeders’ Cup with a chance at a seven-figure payday.

The contest itself was a tremendous success, especially given its tricky spot on the calendar and the negative attention on contests following the news from last week that this year’s BCBC purse is being withheld pending investigation. The tournament attracted 58 entries, down only 14 from last year.

Hellmers took to Twitter in the wake of his win, where he posts as @Rawordie:

“Is it cool if I collude w/the Divine? This was a gift from God. #blessup. At some point the haters of the Pick 6 Boys will appreciate what we do in tournaments & for the sport. We care about this game & the precious athletes...more to come to elevate all horseplayers’ greatness”

The Pick Six Boys include Hellmers’s old friends Kevin McFarland and Nisan Gabbay. Gabbay won last weekend’s BCBC.

Rasak wins in a walk

In other tournament news from the weekend, Carl Rasak was the runaway winner of the Grade 1 World Championship of Handicapping qualifier on Saturday on DRF Tournaments. Rasak collected four times in the 12-race event with Silent Citizen ($48.60 win-place combined), Lirica ($34.40), Spring Quality ($40.80), and Fan Base ($16.80).

His total of $140.60 was more than $38 clear of second in the 16-player event.

On Sunday on DRF Tournaments, next weekend’s Aqueduct Challenge took center stage, with five entries advancing to the $500 live-bank contest. One entry each went to John Macklin, Louis Alessi, Harrychand Sukhram, and two entries went to Mark Stanton.

Macklin was white-hot, cashing in seven of the 10 contest events including five of the first six. His biggest winner was Rara ($35.80) in the anchor leg, but he’d have qualified even without those points: He finished with $109.30 and the cutoff was $65.60.

Stanton’s two cards are worth a look. He played his strongest opinions on both and split up his entries in races where his opinion wasn’t as strong, ending up with $70.60 on his better ticket and $65.60 on the other. He missed the last race on both but had a big enough lead to hang on. Players interested in seeing exactly what each player played can go to the leaderboards section on the DRF Tournaments website.

Contest action returns to DRFT on Wednesday with a special free game where players can start their journeys to the $1 million, no-takeout World Championship of Handicapping finals. Next weekend’s featured game is Grade 1 qualifier for the WCH finals. It costs $580 to play and one in 10 entries will win their $5,000 buy-ins.

For a full list of all the games happening this week on DRFT, go to tournaments.drf.com.