By Noel Michaels
The NTRA National Horseplayers Championship [NHC] has been around for 22 years and the NHC Tour has been around 14, but no player has ever been able to repeat as NHC winner and no former NHC Tour champion has ever also won the NHC main event. There are several prominent semi-finalists in the 2022 NHC finals who are in the position to change all that.
Going into Sunday’s final day of action, the last two winners of the NHC Tour, Joseph Costello and Sally Goodall, are still in contention, particularly 2020 Tour champ Goodall, 58, of Las Vegas, who finished Saturday’s second round in second place in the standings. Reigning NHC Tour champion Costello, 53, from Chicago, entered Sunday in the top 20. Not only could Costello make history as the first Tour winner to go on to win an NHC, he would be doing it as the current champion, which makes him eligible for a $5 million dollar bonus. He would be the first NHC winner to haul in such a bonus in NHC history.
Three past winners of the NHC main event also are still alive in the 2022 NHC finals, with a chance of becoming the first repeat champion – 2019 winner R. Scott Coles, 37, of Mokena, Ill., 2003 winner Stephen Wolfson, 54, or Holly Hill, Fla., and 2001 winner Judy Wagner, 71, or New Orleans. Twenty of the 22 post NHC winners are still alive, and about a dozen of them are still active on the Tour.
Judy Wagner came into Sunday’s action in the top 10, while Coles was just outside the top 10 and only a few dollars behind Wagner. Wolfson entered the semi-final round in the top 40.
Good luck to all 64 NHC semi-finalists.