Tasty, but REALLY expensive clam chowder

Troubled trips and plain old poor handicapping were the downfall for yours truly in Saturday's NHC Tour super qualifier contest at Monmouth Park, where 286 contestants competed for the $13,750 top cash prize and, most significantly, one of 10 seats to the year-end championship in Las Vegas.

Cheaper to drive to Boston or Manhattan for soup...

The afternoon started decently, with a very conservative "move the chains" $5 place-$10 show wager on 8-to-1 Wee Freudian (finished second) increasing my opening $150 bankroll to $172, but the rest of the afternoon was on 0-for-11 travesty replete with horses that stumbled, tripped out of the gate, were incapable of changing leads or simply did not want to compete.

Normally I try to take something positive away from my contest play, but today's effort (along with an 0-for-4 in today's Public Handicapper plays) was one that I'd like to forget about quickly.

With no live-money contests on my radar until the Monmouth-Woodbine Challenge listed on the NHC Tour schedule for September 19, a hiatus from contest play is probably a good thing, considering my atrocious play in four at Monmouth this season.  Indeed, as I maintain this diary I am learning more than ever that the craft is humbling and difficult, but the NHC Tour Free Online Challenge and well-run Del Mar summer contests will tide me over through July and August and perhaps provide a lottery-like outcome as the NHC Tour qualifying season enters the second half.  Plus, with a plus-$36 in the Public Handicapper standings, I will have a puncher's chance come the end of the long PH season, which concludes with the Breeders Cup weekend in November.

PS. Sophia and the rest of the Monmouth crew did a nice job of organizing and deserve much credit for running Saturday's tournament and reserving the first-level theater for contest players.