After finishing day one in fifth place, Gillum found himself in the 81st spot with two races to go on day two. He jumped over a few people to qualify into the semi-final round in 64th place, barely inside the 10% cut line set at 77 entries.

When asked about his strategy going into Sunday's final day of the competition, Gillum said, “My picks did not change since 6 a.m. this morning, I played exactly what I would have played regardless of which place I was in. I got lucky, it was just my day today.”

Racing has always been something Gillum, who operates a produce company in Indianapolis, Indiana, enjoyed, he said.

“It's a passion of mine and has been for 20, 30 years. This is just the best,” Gillum said.

In only his second trip to the NHC, Gillum is the 25th individual to take home the grand prize at the handicapping contest.

When asked what this means to him, Gillum said, “I am just thinking about my family at home watching, I'm just so excited and happy. Truly I'm at a loss for words.”

The official top 10 finishers at the 2024 NHC and prize money won are: Mike Gillum, $800,000; Seth Morris, $250,000; Matthew Blanchet, $200,000; Lawrence Kahlden, $150,000; Daniel Kaplan, $125,000; Rob Henie, $85,000; Nicholas Shirilla, $80,000; TJ Sonde, $75,000; GT Nixon, $70,000; and Scott Cavalieri, $65,000.

“Horseplayers are such a pivotal part of the sport of Thoroughbred racing, and the NTRA is extremely proud to host this event to celebrate all their contributions every year to crown our annual champion,” said NTRA President and CEO Tom Rooney. “It's incredible to see how the NHC has evolved in the 25 years since it began and really special to have so many dedicated horseplayers who work all year to qualify for this event. To have the 25th NHC, coupled with St. Patrick's Day and the NCAA tournament weekend, has made for a weekend like no other. Congratulations to all who made it here this weekend, and especially to Mike Gillum for taking home the grand prize.”

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The NHC features more than 600 top horseplayers (including approximately 150 individuals with two entries), awarding nearly $4.5 million in cash and prizes. All qualifiers will receive a complimentary four-night stay at the Horseshoe Las Vegas and travel reimbursements which total more than $1 million. The complete field and total prize breakdown will be finalized following the Last Chance/First Chance Contest, held Thursday, Mar. 14 on the eve of the NHC.

New to the 25th NHC will be a Final Table livestream, co-hosted by Steve Byk and Rick Hammerle, that will be streamed on NTRA's X, YouTube, and Website for the final seven races of the Championship. Interested spectators will have the ability to watch and listen to the action unfurling all weekend long at the NHC. Rachel McLaughlin, Racing Analyst at Horseshoe Indianapolis, will be providing coverage throughout the weekend on all NTRA social media platforms.

Additionally, At the Races with Steve Byk will broadcast live on SiriusXM satellite radio (Sirius 219; XM 201) from the Horseshoe Las Vegas and online at www.stevebyk.com daily, from 9a.m.-12 p.m. ET/6-9 a.m. PT on Friday and Monday, with bonus NHC coverage at www.SteveByk.com/listen-live-SiriusXM slated for 2-8 p.m. ET/11 a.m.-5 p.m. PT) next Friday-Sunday. America's Best Racing and Hawthorne Racecourse will also be streaming live from the event.

Also new to the program will be the Silver Sunday Contest, available to all individuals competing in the tournament with no entry fee. Every individual will receive a maximum of one entry and will have to place mythical Win/Place bets throughout Mar. 17 on 10 optional and seven mandatory races (the seven mandatory races will coincide with the NHC Final Table). The top 25 highest bankrolls, including ties, will receive a share of $100,000 in prize money. The top five highest finishers will win an entry into the 2025 NHC and the top 10% will receive on track 2024 NHC Tour points. A “First Five” free-to-play online contest will be available to non-NHC participants and will offer five berths to the 2025 NHC.

Information on the 25th NHC can be found at www.ntra.com  including the 2024 full schedule of events and the 2024 Official Rules.

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Branded merchandise will be available in exchange for a donation and there will be an opportunity to donate and enter for a chance to win various prizes. Winning prizes include a table for four at Maryland Million on Oct. 1, a private tour of Old Friends Equine Retirement with Michael Blowen, or exclusive TAA merchandise.

The TAA will also be on-site for NTRA's Last Chance First Chance NHC qualifier, which is held the Thursday of the event.

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Having previously won in 2021 and qualifying every year since 2016, Costello secured a seat to the 2025 NHC in addition to the prize money and is eligible to take home a $5-million bonus should he become a three-peat winner at the 25th NHC competition in Las Vegas. Costello finished the 2023 Tour season with 24,053 points from 31 contests.

It was a close race for spots behind him as Michael Mulvihill finished in second with 22,991 points; Evan Trommer finished in third with 22,709 points; Sally Goodall placed fourth at 22,600 points; and Brett Wiener came in fifth with 22,399 points. The complete 2023 Tour results can be found here.

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The 'Silver Sunday' contest will instead be open to all individuals competing in the tournament with no fee to enter. Individuals will receive no more than one entry and will be asked to place mythical win/place wagers on 10 optional and seven mandatory races on Mar. 17. The seven mandatories will coincide with the NHC Final Table. The top 25 highest bankrolls, including ties, will be eligible for a share of $100,000 in prize money. The top five finishers receive an entry into the 2025 NHC and the top 10% will receive on-track 2024 NHC points. Click here for the full contest rules.

A separate online contest including the seven mandatory races that comprise the NHC Final Table will be offered online on Mar. 17 to NHC non-qualifiers only and offer five spots in the 2025 NHC as well as Tour Points. Both the Silver Sunday Contest and the online contest for non-NHC qualifiers will be free-to-play contests and limited to one entry per individual. Both contests will require a 2024 NHC Tour Membership in advance of the start of the contests. The online contest will be hosted on HorseTourneys.com.

This year's NHC features more than 600 horseplayers competing for an estimated $4 million in cash and prizes. Click here for additional information.

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In a Dec. 22 filing in United States District Court (District of New Jersey), the judge in the case ordered both sides to file letters by Jan. 15 “if either party wishes to explain why this case should NOT be transferred back to the Central District of California.”

The judge explained his rationale: “This case relates entirely, or all-but-entirely, to alleged events at a 2021 horse race in Kentucky,” the judge wrote. “And this case was originally filed by the Plaintiffs in the Central District of California, before the Plaintiffs voluntarily dismissed their claims and re-filed them here. This is a case, in short, that has little, if anything, to do with New Jersey.”

The original version of the suit, led by Michael Beychok, the winner of the 2012 National Horseplayers Championship, was filed in California four days after Baffert's May 9, 2021, disclosure that Medina Spirit had tested positive for betamethasone after winning the May 1 Derby.

It wasn't until Aug. 22, 2023, that the Kentucky Horse Racing Commission's disqualification of Medina Spirit from the 2021 Derby–which also affirmed the elevation of runner-up Mandaloun as the official winner–was sustained after a long administrative appeals process.

Baffert, plus his incorporated racing stable, were named as the defendants back in 2021, and the plaintiffs' California-filed version of the suit made it a point to note that “Venue is also proper for these claims in this Court because Defendants reside and transact their affairs and conduct business in the State of California and, specifically, through this District.”

The more than 30 class members of that suit chose the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) Act as a tool to try and collect damages. In addition, they sought an order from the judge stating that Baffert must divest himself from the sport.

RICO is a sweeping 1970 federal statute initially designed to combat the Mafia. But in a legal sense, it has long since lost its “organized crime” stigma. RICO today is rarely used to go after stereotypical “godfather” figures. Instead, RICO has evolved as a civil litigation component, and is most often asserted by purported victims of white-collar crimes, such as mail and wire fraud.

Two months after its initial filing, the class-action complaint was withdrawn from the California federal court on July 22, 2021. One day later, an amended version of it resurfaced in New Jersey.

The New Jersey complaint from July 23, 2021, alleged that, “[Baffert's] multiple and repeated acts of doping and entering horses into Thoroughbred races, including the Kentucky Derby, constituted racketeering activity.”

In subsequent court documents, the plaintiffs explained why they believed New Jersey should now be the proper venue. They cited a legal precedent that involved a case in which the act of  simulcasting a race into New Jersey from another state “permits the Court to exercise personal jurisdiction over it.”

The plaintiffs also alleged that Baffert's purported doping fraud included his occasional starts at Monmouth Park.

But as far back as September 2021, when Baffert first moved for dismissal of this lawsuit, his court filing termed that switch from California to New Jersey “blatant forum shopping” because the new venue has “no meaningful connection to the allegations raised in their Complaint.”

The term “forum shopping” refers to the practice of litigants angling to get their case heard in the court thought most likely to result in a winning outcome. It is not illegal or unethical to forum shop, but judges can and do let parties know if they believe lawyers are stretching legal boundaries by trying to get their cases heard in venues that are most favorable to them.

Another Baffert filing, on Jan. 12, 2022, again alleged that the plaintiffs were off base in attempting to litigate the matter in New Jersey.

“The law is clear that there must be case-specific contacts with the forum state…” that filing stated. “Even if one were to accept Plaintiffs' tinfoil conspiratorial premise that Baffert engaged in a nationwide racketeering scheme to defraud individuals he never met, Plaintiffs would still have to establish that at least some of the alleged illicit conduct actually occurred in New Jersey. They have utterly failed to do so. This matter has zero connection to New Jersey and it must be dismissed.”

Earlier this year, a federal judge in Kentucky dismissed a similar (but entirely separate) class-action lawsuit initiated against Baffert by a group of horseplayers who alleged negligence, breach of contract, and unjust enrichment because their losing pari-mutuel bets on the 2021 Derby also weren't honored as winners.

Baffert's attorney in the New Jersey case, W. Craig Robertson III, made sure the judge in New Jersey was aware of that Kentucky dismissal when considering the motion to dismiss, which is still active and has yet to be ruled upon.

“Identical to this case, the [federal complaint in Kentucky] was commenced by a purported class of aggrieved gamblers against [Baffert] asserting claims connected to pari-mutuel payouts from the 2021 Kentucky Derby,” Robertson wrote in a July 26, 2023, letter to the U. S. District Court of New Jersey.

“The Western District of Kentucky dismissed those claims as a matter of law,” Robertson continued. “Specifically, the Court held that Kentucky's Rules of Racing govern all bets placed on the Kentucky Derby and because the Rules are clear that all payouts are final based on official race-day results, aggrieved gamblers have no injury at law and no viable cause of action even if race results are later altered.

“Similarly here, [Baffert seeks] dismissal of the case before Your Honor due to a lack of cognizable injury, whether under the RICO statute or otherwise,” Baffert's attorney wrote.

Counsel for the plaintiffs responded with their own letter to the judge Aug. 7, writing that the Kentucky decision “has no relevance or merit to the present matter” and that the “causes of action brought by the present Plaintiffs in this action are separate, distinct, and dissimilar from the claims brought by separate parties” in the dismissed Kentucky lawsuit.

The post At 2 1/2-Year Mark, Bettors-Vs.-Baffert Lawsuit on Cusp of Getting Booted Back to Original Court appeared first on TDN | Thoroughbred Daily News | Horse Racing News, Results and Video | Thoroughbred Breeding and Auctions.

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Costello had already qualified twice for the NHC Finals, the maximum number of seats for the final prize money in Las Vegas set for March 2024. So, his seat was allotted to the fifth-place finisher as the top four players advanced to the NHC Qualifier from the event.

Joining Costello to earn prize money was Pat Cronin finishing second and winning $2,000, Kevin Harrell who finished third and won $1,000 and Mark Myrick who finished fourth and won $500. Bob Mack was the fifth-place finisher and will join Cronin, Harrell and Myrick for a seat at the final held at Las Vegas March 15-17, 2024.

“I play in several tournaments each year, but not a lot,” said Costello. “I've played in this one at Horseshoe Indianapolis before. I like the format and it worked out where I had the day off to run down and play in it.”

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Paul Calia, a retired disability advisor for Social Security from Kansas City, Missouri, toppled a field of 779 entries to take home the grand prize of $800,000, in addition to finishing in fourth place with his second entry–good for another $150,000– to earn an Eclipse Award and Horseplayer of the Year honors during the NTRA National Horseplayers' Championship which concluded Sunday in Las Vegas. This is the first contest that Calia has ever won.

Calia amassed winnings of $362.50 on his first entry, and $305.50 on his second entry, over the three-day tournament from 53 mythical $2 win and place bets–18 each on Friday and Saturday, 10 in Sunday morning's semifinal round, and seven at the exciting Final Table which ultimately yielded his victory. He is the first winner to also finish in the top 10 with a second entry.

“I started a little slow on Friday, thought I handicapped okay with some seconds and thirds,” said Calia. “But Saturday I was pretty hot, and pretty much hit every longshot. It's hard to put into words how many winners I picked on Saturday.”

When asked his approach to playing two cards in the final table he said, “I don't know how to describe it. I didn't switch a lot of picks, I don't let the odds affect me. I only switched about 10-15% of my picks between cards, one or two a day that's it.”

With this victory, Calia also earns an exemption into next year's NHC and a berth to the 2023 Breeders' Cup Betting Challenge worth $10,000. In lieu of winning a second BCBC entry, which he won from finishing first on day two (Saturday), he will instead take home $10,000 cash. That makes his full earnings from the weekend a whopping $960,000 and a 2024 BCBC seat valued at $10,000.

“There are three pillars to the sport of Thoroughbred racing–you have the horse and its connections, the racetracks and the horseplayer,” said NTRA President and CEO Tom Rooney.  “So, if horse racing is a three-legged stool, we aren't anything without the horseplayer. My family's relationship with this sport and with football all traces back to playing horses. The excitement at the NHC is vital to everything we do as an industry. This year's NHC is bigger than ever before and I'm proud that the NTRA has this unique opportunity to showcase the best of the best in handicapping and celebrate what it means to be a horseplayer.”

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For more information on the latest inductees, click here.

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“It's such an honor coming out on top in this year-long tour against arguably the absolute best handicappers out there. It's quite a mind challenge on both picking horses and tournament strategy,” Johns said after learning of his victory. “I finished third last year and was determined to improve on that. I'm just happy I won and a big congrats to all those folks competing with me. They made it difficult and exciting to the very last weekend.”

Trey Stiles finished in second place with 22,019 points, while Dylan Donnelly finished in third with 21,998 points. Tim Kindlon was the top rookie finisher of the year, coming in with 17,460 points. Kindlon will be honored at the NHC Champions Dinner on Sunday, March 12 with the Jim Nace Award, named in honor of the longtime contest player who passed away in 2019. The top 20 finishers of the 2022 Tour win cash prizes. The complete 2022 Tour results can be found here.

More than 5500 NHC Tour members participated in 2022 handicapping qualifiers leading to the 2023 NHC. The 2023 NHC Tour season begins Mar. 4. To sign up for the 2023 NHC Tour, click here and for more information on the NHC Tour benefits and to view the official rules go to www.nhctour.com.

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