If Evan Trommer made a New Year’s resolution to resume winning contests in bunches here at HorseTourneys, he is off to a very good start.
The Floridian rang in 2025 on a victorious note, taking the New Year’s Day qualifier to the $250,000 Gtd. Flo-Cal Faceoff here on February 1-2.
Trommer put up 4 wins and 2 places, highlighted by Toxic Girl ($30.60, $11.40) in race 8 at Aqueduct. Also gaining admittance to the Flo-Cal was runner up Aaron Reed (7W, 1P), whose day was topped by Quick Kate ($15.60, $5.80) in the day’s final contest race, the 7th at Santa Anita.
After a quiet three days, Trommer came back with a vengeance on Sunday.
Buoyed by Giroovin ($27.80, $7.00) in the initial contest heat, race 6 at Aqueduct, Trommer (3 firsts, 1 second) led the way in Sunday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers.
Trommer upped his score with an additional winner at the end in Sunday’s Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship play-in.
That late win with Presider ($8.80, $4.00) in the 10th race at Santa Anita made the difference in Trommer snatching the $6,500 package from runner up Matthew White.
Even when Trommer lost on Sunday, he won.
He received $4,567 for placing second to “Pistol” Pete Acocella in Sunday’s HT Tour battle, our $20,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed with a final purse of $25,375. Acocella was able to edge Trommer out of the $11,418 top prize thanks in no small part to having Richy ($24.00, $7.60) in race 8 at Tampa.
Trommer also came in second to 2023 Flo-Cal Faceoff champ David Wolff in Sunday’s other cash feature, our $5,088 Big Bucks Pick & Pray.
This silver medal added another $1,017 to the Trommer coffers. Wolff’s gold, meanwhile, was worth $3,562.
Trommer only managed a “bronze” in Sunday’s Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier, but it paid off as good as gold.
Trommer finished third behind Ilan Cuellar (3 wins, 4 places) and Wendy Long (3W, 1P). Like Trommer, the top two were both groovin’ early with Giroovin. There were also enough entries for a fourth $1,500 entry to be awarded, and that one went to George Brown (3W, 2P). Brown’s heavy lifter was Richy.
So between Wednesday and Sunday, Trommer racked up two Flo-Cal Faceoff seats, a BCBC entry, a Pegasus package and $5,584 in cash (total value: $25,084). Now if only he could do something about the Las Vegas Raiders!
Trommer wasn’t the only player in that Sunday Flo-Cal Faceoff qualifier who had an extra-nice weekend. So did Wendy Long.
The same picks that landed Long the Flo-Cal spot also brought her an NHC berth. Joining Long in the field for the 26th edition of the big dance will be Joseph Kelley, who counted Richy among his 3 firsts and 3 seconds.
A day earlier, Long won not one but two Flo-Cal Faceoff seats.
Using different picks in every race, Long managed to finish both second and fourth in Saturday’s “four seater.” Also advancing to the Feb. 1-2 Flo-Cal final were first-place finisher Mark Richards (6 wins, 1 place) and 3rd-place contestant David Lupo (3W, 1P).
Since Long has now piled up three Flo-Cal Faceoff entries, and only two are permitted per account in that event, we sincerely hope that she knows someone to whom she might want to transfer that third entry!
Speaking of the Flo-Cal Faceoff, that Sunday qualifier to it was really a key race (sure to be favorably treated by the American Graded Stakes Committee!) because it also represented just one of two successes during the week for Ilan Cuellar.
Despite getting knocked around in the first five frames, Cuellar authored a complete-game victory in Wednesday’s Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge Low Ratio qualifier at HorsePlayers. Toxic Girl was the star of his team.
Sticking with the New Year’s Day featured-tourney action, John Kennedy picked 5 winners—including Toxic Girl and Quick Kate—en route to victory in the day’s special $10,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray.
Kennedy pocketed $6,276 from a prize pool that finished up at $15,691.
There was also a holiday NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers that guaranteed a robust five seats.
Congratulations to Robert Moore (5 wins, 2 places), Scott Boudreaux (4W, 2P) Robert Schwartz (5W, 1P), Tarik Kouchtaf (4W, 1P) and Travis Allison (4W, 5P). All five seat winners had both Toxic Girl and Quick Kate on their scorecards.
Thursday was Sean O’Malley’s time to shine.
O’Malley had the first two winners and the last two winners on an abbreviated race menu shortened to eight races due to a cancellation at Mahoning Valley. His final winner was, by far, the best—Roscoe Pine ($27.00, $9.80) in the 9th at Gulfstream. The four-wins-out-of-eight-races performance got O’Malley the $1,500 seat in Thursday’s qualifier to the $250,000 Gtd. Flo-Cal Faceoff here on February 1-2.
The same selections also put O’Malley in the winner’s circle of Thursday’s featured cash tourney.
O’Malley raked in $3,359 for capturing Thursday’s $6,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which was ultimately worth a total of $7,465.
On Friday, the horse you really wanted to have was Az U Chase Me ($22.60, $8.40). All of the day’s big winners had that 10-1 Aqueduct race 7 victor.
One of them was Stephen Curtin (4 firsts, 2 seconds), who won $8,753 in Friday’s HT Tour event, our $15,000 Gtd. Pick & Pray, which closed with a final purse of $19,451.
Another Az U Chase Me fan was Neil Schippers.
Schippers accumulated 3 winners and 2 runners up on the way to taking Friday’s Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship qualifier.
Alistair Wallbaum (4 wins, 1 places) and Dave Gray (3W, 1P) both came up with Az U Chase Me.
They were the two winners in Friday’s play-in to the Flo-Cal Faceoff. Wallbaum hit each of the final two races to get up for the victory in this closely-fought competition.
There were enough entries in Friday’s $75 NHC qualifier for three Vegas spots to be awarded.
Those berths went to Rob Henie (3 wins, 5 places), 2012 million-dollar winner Michael Beychok (4W, 3P) and Christopher “Liberty and justice for” Ahl (4W. 1P). Ahl nailed the first three contest-race winners and four of the first five.
There were a pair of NHC qualifiers scheduled at HorsePlayers on Saturday. One of them was a $210 play-in that was restricted to those who had yet to nail down a 2025 seat.
John Vogel is undoubtedly pleased to no longer be able to count himself in that category. Vogel amassed 3 winners plus 3 nice place payoffs on runners up to secure his passage to Las Vegas in 2 1/2 months.
The other Saturday NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers was a $500 Low Ratio affair.
Starting with Nolita ($17.60, $6.60) in the 7th at Aqueduct, Vaughn Bair reeled off three straight winners at the outset and added another one later on to garner the Vegas package.
Bernard Reilly also got off to a fast start thanks to Nolita.
Reilly (3 firsts, 4 seconds) accounted for the other featured-tourney at HorsePlayers—a $179 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge qualifier.
Thanks also in part to Nolita, Pat Camacho prevailed in our richest tourney of the week.
Camacho (3 firsts, 3 seconds) took home the $13,444 grand prize at the conclusion of Saturday’s $25,000 Gtd, Pick & Pray (an HT Tour event), which closed with a final pot of $29,876.
Vineet Sharma also doped out Nolita.
Nolita plus one other winner sufficed for Sharma to bag the $6,411 grand prize in Saturday’s $9,159 Big Bucks Pick & Pray. And there’s Evan Trommer’s name again. He picked up another solid second-place check ($1,831) in this one.
For both Kevin Avera (5 wins, 2 places) and Peter Kizenko (4W, 1P), the big Saturday horse was Afternoon Nap ($15.00, $8.60) in race 8 at Santa Anita.
Avera and Kizenko came away with the $6,500 packages in Saturday’s play-in to the January 25th Pegasus World Cup Betting Championship.
Another important January 25 contest is the Houston Betting Championship, to be hosted on track at Sam Houston.
Gregory Lewis won a $1,500 seat to the “HBC” on Saturday on the strength of 4 winners and 2 runners up. His highest-yielding selection was Valentine Bug ($13.20, $6.00) in race 7 at Gulfstream.
On Sunday, the prolific winners were Evan Trommer and Wendy Long—but the highest scorer was Thomas Mayberry.
Mayberry (3 wins, 4 places and a score of $124.10) and Tom Quinones reeled in the Vegas packages in Sunday’s $210 NHC qualifier at HorsePlayers. Mayberry’s best pick was right at the beginning with Giroovin, while the heavy lifter for Quinones was Richy.
The big boy for George Smith on Sunday was Big Boy Jak, the 9-2 winner of race 7 at Gulfstream.
Smith (no relation to McKay) used Big Boy Jak plus one other winner and five runners up to pick up a $1,500 entry in Sunday’s Houston Betting Championship play-in.
The week just gone by was another frenetic one in terms of competing for NHC Last Chance/First Chance entries There were 56 such seats won here last week. Here’s who did the winning:
Monday: James Lisowsky
Tuesday, Francis Drew, Troy Johnson
Wednesday:Evan Trommer (2 seats), Nick “48 Hrs.” Noce, Cal “Frontier” Jestice, Howard Johnson, Michael Bailey, Joseph “Kevin” Costello (2 seats), Troy Johnson, George Novick, David May (2 seats).
Thursday: Gregory Lewis, Kirk Rockwell, Daniel Kaplan, Sharada Bommanaboina and…for a third consecutive day…Troy Johnson.
Friday: Dan Brockman, Alan Hoffman, Sean Nolan, Stephen Spinelli, Tyler Hoffman, James Lisowsky, Ed Peters, Scott Cavalieri, Rick Zoller and Larry Smitley.
Saturday: Kirk Rockwell, Mark Heider, Sharada Bommanaboina (2 seats), Rich Pawlowski, Rafael Lopez, Jay Johns (2 seats), John Gaspar, Cresencio Decayanan, Jonathan Holden, Jim Colbert, Branson Cambra, Edward “Wright Stuff” Wright and Vic Vickers.
Sunday: Anthony Spinazzola (2 seats), Stephen McNatton, Evan Trommer (2 seats), “The Commissioner” Tim Smith, George “Boomer” Scott (2 seats), Eric Gielata, Stephen Spinelli and John Foster.
Congratulations to all of last week’s winners—and congratulations also to Eric “B Connected” Boyd, the newly-crowned 2024 HorseTourneys Tour champion.
Check back in to this space tomorrow—when we’ll get to know the Fort Davis, Tex., pastor, who racked up a record nine HT Tour victories in 2024.
