By Noel Michaels

 

By the time the NTRA National Horseplayers Championship [NHC] reaches Sunday afternoon, the field of roughly 640 entries will have been cut down to 64 semi-finalists and then narrowed down further to the 10-player Final Table that will ultimately decide the championship.

 

The Final Table will consist of seven races, and the player who finishes with the top cumulative total for the three-day competition will be the next winner of the Eclipse Award for handicapping and also earn the crown of Handicapper of the year.  First prize in the 2022 NHC is $725,000, and everyone at the Final Table will take home a minimum of $50,000 in purse money.

 

Contestants will have built their bankrolls based on successful win-and-place bets from the season’s top simulcast signals, including Aqueduct, Fair Grounds, Golden Gate, Gulfstream, Laurel, Oaklawn, Santa Anita, and Tampa. Those are the eight traditional tracks for the NHC finals.

 

The Final Table Sunday afternoon always comes down to Santa Anita and Golden Gate races, as well as late races from the other tracks, but this year the Final Table will be a whole new ball game. Three of the seven races to be bet on at the Final Table this year will not come from one of the NHC tournament-eligible tracks. The most important track at the 2022 NHC Final Table will not be Santa Anita or Golden Gate. The most important track at this year’s Final Table will be Sam Houston.

 

“We were approached by Sam Houston Race Park officials several months ago, asking of we would consider using Houston Racing Festival races as part of our Sunday menu of races at the NHC. Our response was yes. After our race selection committee reviewed the entries and the quality of the fields drawn, it was an easy decision,” said Keith Chamblin, the Chief Operating Officer of the NTRA.

 

Here are the final seven deciding races at the 2022 NHC:

 

Track              Race                Time (Pacific)

Gulfstream      Race 10           1:42

Fair Grounds   Race 7             2:05

Sam Houston  Race 6             2:23

Fair Grounds   Race 8             2:36

Sam Houston  Race 8             3:23

Sam Houston  Race 9             3:53

Santa Anita     Race 9             4:34

 

The Sam Houston race card is loaded with stakes races on Sunday and became “in play” for the NHC thanks to a 1:45 central time first post on Sunday afternoon. Several prominent jockeys also will be riding at Sam Houston Sunday, including Joel Rosario, Tyler Gaffalione, and many more based out-of-town including James Graham, Adam Beschizza, Corey Lanerie, Jareth Loveberry, and even E.T. Baird.

 

“It was a godsend to be able to utilize Sam Houston races for the Final Table on Sunday,” said mandatory race committee chairman Eric Wing. “Their card consists of full. Competitive fields with nationally prominent riders and horsemen. With so much money at stake it was nice to be able to offer three of their races instead of some other races that figured to offer less value for the horseplayers.”

 

Sam Houston race 6 on Sunday is the $200,000 Texas Turf Mile, an ideal tournament type of race with an 11-horse field and several contenders. Race 8 at Sam Houston is the $200,000 John B. Connally (G3) at a mile and a half on the turf with 12 horses and a morning-live favorite who is 7-2. Sam Houston’s ninth race, the penultimate race of the tournament, will be the $75,000 Stonerside Sprint, and 6-furlong sprint with a highly competitive 12-horse field.

 

The 2022 NHC will conclude with race 9 at Santa Anita, but by then the well-timed races from Sam Houston will already have gone a long way to deciding the championship.

 

If you haven’t already started boning-up on the Sunday race card at Sam Houston, now is a good time to start. A few nice-paying winners at Sam Houston could go a long way to making a difference of several hundred thousand dollars for a couple of the top handicappers in the country at the NHC Final Table.

 

Best of luck to all.