Dolan’s late surge secures BCBC championship

TwinSpires.com player Robert Dolan has shown a stunning turn of foot to rally past hundreds of his fellow players and win the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge.

In a move that showed the betting contest is never over until the very end, Dolan leaped from 267th place going into the last race to win the title. He did so by placing his entire remaining stake of $4,495 on the Sovereignty-The Puma exacta in the Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1).

Dolan had every reason to cheer loudly as 17-1 shot The Puma fought past Knightsbridge to claim second in the Classic. The exacta paid $31.30 for $1, a return for Dolan of $140,694.

That was enough to put him ahead of everyone, and he finished the day with an estimated first prize of $467,000, plus $140,694 in earnings. 

Dolan was about $9,846 clear of notable runner-up Clay Sanders. He was third going into the Classic and improved his standing after $12,000 in doubles in the final two races, in which he took Benvenuto Cellini to win the Breeders' Cup Turf (G1) and both Sovereignty and Forever Young in the Classic.

The successful doubles earned Sanders about $88,260, a great return but not enough to keep Dolan out.

TwinSpires emulated Bill Mott’s effort in the Classic by producing the first and third-place finishers. TwinSpires player Matt Miller, 18th going into the final race, ended up third after betting more than $32,000 on exactas. He anchored Sovereignty to win, but lost out because only $4,000 of those $32,000 exacta investments had The Puma to run second.

Allen Harberg, who led going into the final race after $30,000 in successful win bets on Benvenuto Cellini in the Turf, had only $750 in unsuccessful show bets on Forever Young going into the Classic and ended up more than $32,000 off the winner in fourth.

The previous day’s leader, Matthew McJunkin, didn’t have such a successful day, though he wasn’t far away; if Knightsbridge had held on for second, he would have had $17,000 of the exacta and would undoubtedly have finished much closer.

In addition to Dolan and Miller, another TwinSpires player to earn prize money was 16th-place finisher Neil Thornbury, who will take away an estimated $16,700 in addition to his final balance of $43,983. Prize money was paid down to 25th place, while the top 15 earned berths into the National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) in March next year; Thornbury might still win a spot if one of the top 15 at this tournament cannot attend or has already dual-qualified in another way.

Several TwinSpires representatives also played the BCBC from the track rather than through TwinSpires itself, though none finished in the top 25.

An estimated 668 people took part in the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge this year, up from 643 last year.