Learn about the competitors hoping to take home the $800,000 grand prize and Eclipse Award as Horseplayer of the Year, March 14-16 at Horseshoe Las Vegas
Las Vegas, Nevada (March 7, 2025) – The 26th National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) presented by Caesars Race & Sportsbook, Horseshoe Las Vegas, and Racetrack Television Network (RTN) kicks off next Friday, March 14, and runs through Sunday, March 16, at Horseshoe Las Vegas.
The field of approximately 625 individuals — comprising more than 800 entries—ranging in age, experience, and number of NHC appearances, will yield one ultimate winner, who will go home with $800,000 and an Eclipse Award as the 2025 Horseplayer of the Year. (The complete NHC field, number of individual participants and total entries will be determined by participation in the Last Chance / First Chance Contest on Thursday, March 13 at The Horseshoe. A record field of some 1,000 entries is anticipated.)
The competition features horseplayers representing 47 states and Canada. A total of 97 are first-year players. The youngest competitor in the field is 24-year-old Carson Matties, 24, of Laguna Beach, California, and the oldest horseplayer is George Meachem, 85, of Greeley, Colorado.
The most experienced competitors in the field are led by Sally Goodall, Paul Shurman, and Trey Stiles, each who will be making their 22nd appearance at the NHC. Bill Shurman (Paul’s brother) has played in the NHC 21 times, followed by four players with 20 years of experience: Robert Bertolucci, Dennis Decauwer, Duke Matties (father of Carson) and Mitch Schuman.
Mike Gillum Returns in Title Defense
A total of 13 previous NHC winners will be returning to attempt to become the first repeat winner of the NHC. Joining defending champion Mike Gillum of Fishers, Indiana, will be Judy Wagner (2001) Steve Wolfson Jr. (2003), Stanley Bavlish (2007), Michael Beychok (2012), Jim Benes (2013), Paul Matties Jr. (2016), Ray Arsenault (2017), Chris Littlemore (2018), Scott Coles (2019), Justin Mustari (2021), David Harrison (2022), and Paul Calia (2023).
Bonus Players
Brett Wiener of Clearwater, Florida, who won the 2024 NHC Tour, will be competing for a $5 million bonus if he were to take home the NHC grand prize of $800,000. Six other players have a chance of taking home a $1 million bonus, courtesy of Hawthorne Race Course, if one of them claims the crown: Rockwood Edwards, Greg Lewis, Dennis Montoro, Darren Schweiger, Kevin Smith, Rick Vasquez and Tony Zhou.
Also playing this year are two of the three members of the newest class of the NTRA National Horseplayers Championship Hall of Fame: Jim Benes and Cheryl McIntyre. These two esteemed handicappers and 19-time NHC qualifier Rich Nilsen represent the 11th class of NHC Hall of Fame inductees. The three were voted by their peers for induction and will be celebrated at Sunday night’s awards ceremony.
Notable qualifiers to this year’s NHC include FOX Sports personality Chris Fallica, otherwise known as ‘The Bear’; Brook Smith, co-owner of Eclipse Award Champion Three-Year-Old Male Sierra Leone; former WWE Executive Basil DeVito Jr.; Billy Koch and Gary Fenton, who together manage Little Red Feather racing stable; 2024 NHC Rookie of the Year Michael Abernathy; NHC Hall of Famer Roger Cettina, an executive with the construction firm developing the new Belmont Park; Marshall Gramm, founding partner of Ten Strike Racing; and 2022 NHC Tour Champion Jay Johns, who recently retired as a President of International House of Pancakes (IHOP).
All of the NHC participants qualified via contests hosted by 33 racetracks, casino race books, handicapping contest websites, Advance Deposit Wagering (ADW) platforms, simulcast distribution networks, horse owner associations, media outlets, and other Thoroughbred racing organizations. Outlets that held qualifiers to the 2025 NHC included At the Races with Steve Byk, Breeders’ Cup, Canterbury Park, Delaware Park, Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Empire City Bets, FanDuel TV, Florida Thoroughbred Horsemen’s Association, Gulfstream Park, Hawthorne Race Course, Horseplayers.com, Horsetourneys.com, Horseshoe Indianapolis, Keeneland, Kentucky Downs, Laurel Park, Little Red Feather, Lone Star Park, Los Alamitos, Monmouth Park, NTRA, Race Lens, Remington Park, Sam Houston Race Park, Santa Anita Park, Sciota Downs, Tampa Bay Downs, Thoroughbred Owners of California, Treasure Island, TwinSpires, Woodbine and Xpressbet.
All information on the 26th NHC can be found here including the 2025 Full Schedule of Events, the 2025 Official Rules and more. To sign up for the 2025 NHC Tour and win your way to next year’s NHC visit to www.ntra.com/membership.
About the NHC
The NHC is the most important tournament of the year for horseplayers and is the culmination of a year-long series of NTRA-sanctioned local tournaments conducted by racetracks, casino race books, off-track betting facilities, and horse racing and handicapping websites, each of which sends its top qualifiers to the national finals. There are no bye-ins to the NHC. Each year, the NHC winner joins other human and equine champions as an honoree at the Eclipse Awards and is named Horseplayer of the Year. For more information on the NHC, visit NTRA.com/nhc.
About the NTRA
The NTRA, based in Lexington, Ky., and Washington, D.C., is a broad-based coalition of more than 100 horse racing interests and thousands of individual stakeholders consisting of horseplayers, racetrack operators, owners, breeders, trainers and affiliated horse racing associations, charged with increasing the popularity, welfare and integrity of Thoroughbred racing.
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