Lottery Ticket at the Shore

My next endeavour toward attempting to qualify for the 2010 National Handicapping Championship begins this Saturday, when Monmouth Park kicks off its "Survival at the Shore" online challenge.

In "Survival", players pick a horse in each of the three races the track selects for that day -- usually, the feature and maybe two of the other races with relatively big fields. As long as at least one of your horses hit the board, you "survive" and move on to the next day, and whatever your horse(s) pay to win, place and/or show is tallied in your mythical bankroll. You get one "life preserver", or mulligan, where you can not hit the board on one day -- the second day you don't hit the board with any of your selections, you're out. The last one standing wins the contest, or if (more likely) there are multiple survivors at meet's end, the survivor with the highest bankroll goes to the Red Rock.

"Survival" is fun and free, and the winner qualifies for the NHC. However, there already 2,283 people signed up three days before the contest starts, so it's a bit of a lottery-ticket proposition and I'm certainly not packing my bags for Vegas just because I'm registered.

I've tried this contest in a few previous years. Once about 4 years ago I was one of about 300 people still alive through mid-June or so, but that was as far as I got. Other times I either forgot to make selections or finished off the board twice in the first week or two. Advancing on any given day sounds easy, but I have learned that it is surprisingly not difficult to have your three selections finish off the board.

Anyway, the first days are the biggest elimination days as people who signed up forget to make picks -- I'd guesstimate that a starting field of 2,500-3,000 gets whittled down to half that by the end of Memorial Day Weekend. I plan to remember to make picks every day this year, and of course I plan to hit the board every day, but as Mike Tyson said, everybody has a plan until they get hit.