Road begins for 2019 World Championship of Handicapping

The road to the 2019 World Championship of Handicapping is underway. DRF’s new big-money, no-takeout event debuted last weekend, with players competing for $555,000 in purses. Next year’s event is expected to be much bigger, with an overall potential purse of $1 million.

On Saturday, Charles Lucas won the free WCH kickoff contest, which attracted a robust field of 1,928 entries. To win an event with that ratio of prizes to entries, you really need to have yourself a day and Lucas certainly did, tallying $143 in the 11-race event despite failing to enter a pick in one race. He connected in six races with prices including Holiday’s Angel ($51) in Gulfstream’s seventh and Biloxi Bay ($46.20) in Gulfstream’s eighth.

Horseplayers clearly had Las Vegas on the brain this weekend. Three players from a 69-entry field won their way to the Horse Player World Series on Sunday via DRF Tournaments: Edwin Schweinfurth ($90.20), Salvatore Rinaldo ($77.20), and Earl Pratt ($76.80).

The Horse Player World Series is a mythical-money event happening March 8-10 at the Orleans in Las Vegas. DRF Tournaments will resume running feeders for the HPWS when action resumes on Wednesday.

Schweinfurth got off on the right foot with Heidi Ho ($14.60 win-place combined) in Gulfstream’s seventh. After a three-race cold spell, he added five more collections, the longest of which was Shanghai Tariff ($32.40) in Oaklawn’s sixth.

Rinaldo was in form throughout the contest. He cashed eight times, including consecutively in the last five contest races. He took a Woody Hayes approach – three yards and a cloud of dust – with no horse returning more than $13.20 (Mr. Pinocchio in Gulfstream’s 12th).

Pratt hit in six races and his cashes included both Shanghai Tariff and Mr. Pinocchio. He was a double winner on Sunday, also connecting in a Grade 1 qualifier for the World Championship of Handicapping. He played the same card and landed his $5,000 buy-in to next year’s contest.

Every operating day on DRFT you’ll find Round 1 contests for the WCH. These games cost $95 to play and one in seven entries will advance to Grade 1 qualifiers.

Check out tournaments.drf.com for a full list of all the games on offer.