Horseplayers quickly embrace DRF World Championship

The DRF World Championship of Handicapping was announced this week. If you missed it, it’s an online contest with a $1 million purse and a zero-takeout final round.

Horseplayers are famous for being able to complain about nearly everything, but the response to DRF Tournaments’s new venture has been overwhelmingly positive, with words like “innovative” and “groundbreaking” being thrown around. And the market also has spoken: The first feeders for the contest began to fill as soon as they opened Wednesday.

The reaction of noted contest player Eric Moomey sums up the overall response very

well: “All in all, the DRF World Championship is a very exciting new contest. It’s nice to see an online event that competes with the biggest on-site events with a no-takeout option. Great work, DRF.”

One of the aspects that has received praise is the new qualifying format. It has been designed primarily as a two-stage format, but there are other options from there, making the DRF World Championship of Handicapping a great contest to target no matter what your starting bankroll.

The lowest barrier to entry comes in the form of free contests – there will be free options each day this weekend where players can start their journey to the finals. Saturday’s free contest will send the top 10 finishers to Sunday’s firstround event. Sunday’s freebie will offer a much bigger purse. The top two finishers advance directly to the Derby Day Grade 1.

There are also low-buy-in feeders where one in 10 entries will advance to the first-round contests. This is a perfect entry point for those starting out or still getting used to contest play. They are also an excellent option for players looking for a couple of hours of action for very little risk while still having a significant chance to advance.

The first-round contests are notable in that one in seven players will advance to the second round, the Grade 1 qualifier on Derby Day. Entries for the first round may be purchased for $95.

Larger-bankroll players can purchase into the Grade 1 directly for $580 if they don’t (or choose not to) qualify. From the Grade 1, one in 10 entries will go on to the finals, where players will seek their share of the $1 million purse.

And players who don’t want to deal with qualifying at all can simply buy into the finals for $5,000, avoiding takeout all together.

For more information, including links to sign up for DRF WCH feeders and qualifiers, go to tournaments.drf.com.