Bergen heads TwinSpires players in 2025 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge

The last race turned out to be the sweetest for Lawrence Bergen, the most successful TwinSpires player in the 2025 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.

Bergen leapt up the rankings to be the leading TwinSpires player, and ninth overall, with $7,500 in win bets on the French filly Gezora in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G1) at odds of 9.1-1.

These bets, combined with $4,000 of successful win bets on Notable Speech in the Breeders' Cup Mile (G1), pushed him to a score of 82,690, good enough for ninth place and an estimated prize of $45,000 to take home on top of his winnings. 

This took Smyth above Dean Maliza, who had been the leading TwinSpires player right up to the final race.

Maliza, who led Betting Challenge players across all platforms after Day 1 of the Breeders’ Cup, had a more modest second day but still won more than he invested, scoring successful win bets on Bentornato in the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1), Forever Young in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1), and Nysos in the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile (G1), along with a Notable Speech-Nysos double. 

Maliza finished 11th overall with a score of 70,780 and an estimated prize of $32,000.

The other TwinSpires player to finish in the top 25 was 15th-placed Derek Collett. After winning $23,205 from $12,550 of investments on Day 1, he struck with win bets in four races: Suchet in Race 1, Splendora in the Breeders' Cup Filly & Mare Sprint (G1), Scylla in the Breeders' Cup Distaff (G1), and Forever Young in the Classic. His final score was 48,500, estimated to win him a prize of about $16,000.

None of the TwinSpires players were able to hold out the final-race surge of Dave Smyth. Betting on track at Del Mar, he was in 45th place overall going into the last race with a score of 19,000. But he put everything on the line with two doubles on the final two races, the Dirt Mile and the Filly and Mare Turf, and was rewarded when his $8,000 bet on the Nysos-Gezora double returned $144,800.

Smyth’s final score of 144,800 saw him win the estimated first prize of $450,000. His score was enough to see him beat Ken McMahan, who went up from 68th place going into the final race to second with a score of 139,930 after having $1,000 worth of the Gezora-She Feels Pretty-Diamond Rain trifecta.

Michael Martinelli, who had led into the final race, had to settle for third after his bets in the Filly and Mare Turf were unsuccessful. He pushed his way up the leaderboard with the Forever Young-Sierra Leone-Fierceness trifecta in the Classic and several win bets on Nysos in the Dirt Mile.

Of the 643 contestants, 78 were playing on TwinSpires. Of those 78, just 14 played the tournament on TwinSpires last year; 33 did not play the tournament at all in 2024, while the other 31 were either on track at Del Mar or on other betting forums last year.