$800,000 top prize - NHC 2020
The 21st edition of the NTRA National Horseplayers Championship featured a little bit of everything in its 10-person Final Table contest to decide who earns the $800,000 first-place prize and Eclipse Award as Horseplayer of the Year. As the seventh and final mandatory race went official Sunday evening, it was the 57-year-old Goldsmith -- playing in the NHC for just the second time -- who managed to prevail with a total mythical bankroll of $404.10.
Goldsmith toppled a NHC field that had 694 entries and 564 individual players to record the second-highest total ever behind only Ray Arsenault’s winning bankroll of $407.70 in 2017. Fittingly enough, Goldsmith had to turn back Arsenault along with a Final Table that included NHC Hall of Famer Trey Stiles, upstart Ashley Taylor and Day 2 leader John Vail to claim by far the biggest triumph of his horseplayer career.
“I'm just like in shock,” said Goldsmith, who couldn’t even bring himself to stand in middle stage during the Final Table proceedings. “This is it. I'm never going to top this, right? $800,000? How am I going to top that?
“I was just trying to find something that's going to win, like anything else. I'm not a numbers guy. I look for horses that are in trouble…whatever. Bad break. Excuse trips. Bad trips. And in this place you've got to bet longshots. Most of these are horses I'm not going to easily play. It's hard. You've got to find winners at all different race tracks."
Goldsmith toppled a NHC field that had 694 entries and 564 individual players to record the second-highest total ever behind only Ray Arsenault’s winning bankroll of $407.70 in 2017. Fittingly enough, Goldsmith had to turn back Arsenault along with a Final Table that included NHC Hall of Famer Trey Stiles, upstart Ashley Taylor and Day 2 leader John Vail to claim by far the biggest triumph of his horseplayer career.
“I'm just like in shock,” said Goldsmith, who couldn’t even bring himself to stand in middle stage during the Final Table proceedings. “This is it. I'm never going to top this, right? $800,000? How am I going to top that?
“I was just trying to find something that's going to win, like anything else. I'm not a numbers guy. I look for horses that are in trouble…whatever. Bad break. Excuse trips. Bad trips. And in this place you've got to bet longshots. Most of these are horses I'm not going to easily play. It's hard. You've got to find winners at all different race tracks."