"It feels like being on the floor of a stock exchange during a market crash, or if everyone in a Price Is Right studio audience each drank a pot of coffee. It's the horse racing Hunger Games, but instead of Katniss Everdeen everyone looks like your wayward uncle who enjoys playing the ponies."
That is how Rolling Stone's Alex Scordelis described the atmosphere at horse racing's richest handicapping tournament, a three-day event in Las Vegas with overall cash and prizes totalling more than $2.9 million.
The Daily Racing Form/NTRA National Handicapping Championship presented by Racetrack Television Network and Treasure Island Las Vegas, which took place in late January, was won by Thornhill, Ontario resident Ray Arsenault. The Canadian horseplayer beat out a record field size of 654 entries to take the $800,000 first-place prize and an Eclipse Award as Horseplayer of the Year.
To read the article in which Scordelis takes readers inside racing's "Hunger Games" tournament and shares handicapping advice from the cast of horseplayers, click here.
(With files from the Rolling Stone)