ITM Telegraph — The Best Horseplayer Going, a New NYRA Challenge, and a Weekend Recapped | Tuesday, July 28, 2026

In The Money Telegraph

Tuesday, July 28, 2026 · By ITM Staff

The best story in the game right now belongs to a horseplayer — and there’s a new way to chase one of your own this weekend. Here’s where things stand as the calendar turns toward August.

The Best Horseplayer in the Game Right Now

Racing loves a superstar, and right now the most compelling one in the sport isn’t on four legs. Dylan Donnelly won the National Horseplayers Championship in March by 84 cents. This past weekend, he won the Del Mar Summer Challenge, rallying from behind with a large exacta in the very last race to turn a $4,000 bankroll into $54,448 and beat 107 of the sharpest players in the country. All told, he netted nearly $142,000 in cash and prizes — and earned another Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge seat in the bargain.

The one crown missing from his résumé is that BCBC — and no horseplayer has ever gone from NHC champion to BCBC winner in the same year. We made the full case this week, grounded in Dylan’s own words from his 2021 sit-down with PTF: the grandfather who taught him the game, the accident that changed his life, and the most emotional score of his career. It’s a story worth your time.

Read the feature →

Chase Your Own Seat: the NYRA Bets Jim Dandy Challenge

Speaking of Breeders’ Cup seats: our partners at NYRA Bets have opened a new door this Saturday, Aug. 1, with the Jim Dandy Challenge at Saratoga — and it now offers NHC seats alongside a seeded BCBC seat. It’s a $1,000 buy-in, playable online through NYRA Bets or on-track, with $500 going to your live bankroll and $500 to the prize pool. One hundred percent of that pool is paid out.

Here’s the value that makes it worth a look: NYRA seeds the first $10,000 BCBC seat itself, so it doesn’t come out of the pool — and a fresh BCBC seat is added for every 50 entries, up to four, with NHC seats now in the mix as well. You’ll wager live money on Saturday’s Saratoga races (a minimum of $500 across at least five races, win/place/show and the basic exotics). Register at NYRA.com/Challenge before the third Challenge race. There’s also an $80 online feeder through NYRA Bets for a lower-cost way in.

And don’t forget our own way in every week: the ITM HorsePlayers Tour Friday game is just $20, with multiple ways to win a $10,000 BCBC seat of your own — about as affordable an on-ramp to the big dance as there is. Find it at horseplayers.com.

The Weekend, Recapped

PTF sat down with Nick Tammaro to go through a loaded few days — and to mark the end of an era. The 2025 Preakness winner Journalism has been retired: he injured himself in the starting gate before the July 18 San Diego Handicap, left the stalls five to six lengths adrift, and still circled the field to win on pure class, a finish his trainer called the mark of a true champion. He heads to Coolmore’s Ashford Stud in 2027 having banked more than $4.7 million and, across 14 starts, finished worse than third only once.

On the track, the Breeders’ Cup pictures came into sharper focus. Listenupshance held on by a nose over Maximum Bourbon in the Grade 1 Bing Crosby to punch a Sprint ticket to Keeneland; Built turned in a career-best effort under Irad Ortiz Jr. to take the Grade 2 Vanderbilt; and Counting Stars settled her rubber match with Always A Runner in the Grade 1 CCA Oaks, drawing off by better than four lengths. Out west, the ageless Gold Phoenix ran down the field at 9-2 to win the Grade 2 Eddie Read for Little Red Feather — friends of the crew — with defending winner Formidable Man third and likely better back at a mile. Ortiz Jr., meanwhile, tied a Saratoga record with six wins on Saturday’s card alone.

Bets Built for Players — and a Canadian Nightcap

There’s a welcome trend afoot: tracks building wagers actually meant for horseplayers. Tonight, Mikee P. and Century Downs announcer Murray Slough break out the Assiniboia Downs late Pick 4 (races 4–7, 9:50 p.m. ET post) — a $1-minimum bet at just 15% takeout with a $50,000 guarantee, exactly the kind of low-cost, big-upside pool the crew loves. Keep an eye on Winnipeg beyond tonight, too: the Manitoba Derby, opening leg of the Western Canadian Triple Crown, runs Monday, Aug. 3.

That same player-first thinking is spreading. Kentucky Downs, ahead of its seven-day September meet, is cutting takeout on its Pick 3, 4, and 5 to 15% and adding a $3 late Pick 3 — though it’s also raising its win, place, and show minimum to $5, the highest in North America. A track that handled more than $107 million over seven days last year clearly has room to experiment.

A Somber Note from Del Mar

The weekend also brought real heartbreak. Cornucopian, the 6-5 favorite in Saturday’s Bing Crosby, was pulled up by Juan Hernández on the far turn after injuring his right front, and the dual graded-stakes winner was euthanized Sunday. “Heavy hearts today,” owner Tom Ryan of SF Racing wrote. “Our brilliant colt Cornucopian sustained a catastrophic injury… the kindest and clearest decision was to let him go with dignity.”

A second horse was lost as well: Can You Dream, a 3-year-old filly, was euthanized after an injury in Sunday’s eighth race. They were the first equine fatalities of the Del Mar meet. Our thoughts are with the connections of both.

Also Today: Presque Isle

Chance Rains is back with an eight-race Presque Isle Downs card for Tuesday (first post 3:30 p.m. ET), hunting more of the prices that treated him well on Monday — he landed a $20 winner in the sixth. Worth watching on the meet: Gaddiel Martinez won three on Monday to Antonio Gallardo’s one and has closed to within a single victory of the jockey lead. Read the card →

More all week at inthemoneypodcast.com, with daily previews on the ITM YouTube channel and premium tips on ITM Plus.