TOURNEY TALK

It’s highly unlikely that anyone reading this isn’t already familiar with the Fourgate crew and how they came to be front and center in the NHC world back in March. But in case you have been living under a rock or just have a bad memory, I’ll recap. On March 2nd, Horseplayers.com hosted a free…

On July 7th, 2019, Melvin Simonovic finished in 4th place in an NHC qualifier on HorseTourneys.com. It was a solid effort, but unfortunately for Melvin, the contest only awarded NHC seats to the top there finishers. We’ve all been there, and it sucks. The July 7th contest was one of several impressive performances for the…

One way I like to logically work through an issue is to try to respond to opposing arguments in my mind before I am presented with them in real life. This often leads to me changing my mind on a topic before I take a stance in the meeting room at work, or in the…

Because I have listened to every song on my iPhone nearly 1,000 times while torturing myself on various cardio machines over the last decade or so, my new thing is to listen to horse racing podcasts in an attempt to make 40 minutes feel like the blink of an eye. It seldom works, but that…

Last year was my first time competing in the NHC. It was effectively only my second year attempting to qualify, and it took me until January to win my seat. There are many, many others with substantially more NHC experience than I have. And these days, there seems to be no shortage of info in…

File this post under “Constructive Criticism”, and feel free to dismiss it as just another chance for a horseplayer to gripe if you wish. Tampa Bay Downs is hosting the High Rollers Handicapping Contest on January 11th. Up for grabs, based on 100 entries, are two seats to the National Horseplayers Championship plus cash prizes…

The Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge was, yet again, a losing proposition for me. And I don’t have the energy to go bet by bet and give you a complete rundown of the weekend. But who does’t love a good “almost” story? I think you’ll like this one. You might say this story began in 2010,…

First, a quick personal note. LoneSpeed is not yet what I had hoped it would be. To this day, it is essentially nothing more than a personal blog. My hope is that it will eventually become a place where racing fans and bettors can come to be informed and entertained. For most of the last…

If you aren’t part of the tournament circuit, you probably still heard about this weekend’s most talked about horse racing controversy. Maybe you caught wind of it on social media.  Maybe you sat next to someone at a bar who was a victim of it.  Or maybe you saw the reference to it via Buzzfeed’s…

Three days removed from my first appearance in the National Horseplayers Championship, the dust has settled and I am back in the real world.  Back at home.  Back at work.  And beginning a break of indeterminate length from the contest circuit.  As I mentioned in a previous post, a break seems like a good idea,…