Steven Wells lives in Fordville, N.D., population about 200, works in the bar business, and might be, as host John Gaspar put it, “the best player you’ve never heard of.” He won the 2024 Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge, finished eighth in 2020, and was leading this year’s BCBC at Keeneland with about $120,000 before he finished seventh. He walked Gaspar through his tournament on And The Tournament Winner Was.
He’s a win bettor
Wells started betting more than 40 years ago, at Turf Paradise and Prescott Downs, where his father and grandfather had horses. His first tournament win, at Canterbury, came on just three bets over two days, and it put him in the Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge. He’s played it every year since.
He bets mostly to win, and in the BCBC he doesn’t worry much about the price. The prize money for first, he said, means “the value is already there if you’re right.”
How he handicaps
- Daily Racing Form, plus Mike Welsh on the big days. “I don’t think anybody sees the horse flesh of what’s going on with them any better than him,” Wells said.
- Replays, especially of the Europeans, whose riders often wrap up once their chance is gone.
- Jockeys. He has a long memory for a bad ride.
- Mapping a horse months ahead. In June he’ll pick a Breeders’ Cup horse and the two races it should run in to get there. If the trainer follows that schedule, he’s interested. That’s how he found his first big bet, Stevie Wonderboy, who went on to win the 2005 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile.
A number, and a plan
Before every tournament, Wells works out what it will take to win. In the BCBC, his target is $200,000. This year he mapped the whole Saturday in advance and never took his laptop out of his backpack at the track.
Here’s how his best entry got to the top of the leaderboard on Saturday:
- All $6,330 he had left on Ways and Means to win, the first Breeders’ Cup race of the day, which took him to about $13,100.
- Then Further Ado to win in the Dirt Mile, a photo he thought was “not even close” until the replays, which took him to about $27,000.
- Then the big one: a $15,000 exacta, T O Elvis over Englishman, in the Sprint, plus $5,000 on Englishman over T O Elvis. T O Elvis came from far back to win, and Wells was in first with just over $120,000.
Making the rest of the field adjust
With three races left, Wells revised his target to about $150,000 and bet $30,000 to win on Fully Subscribed in the Distaff. She ran second to Nitrogen. It cost him first place, but Gaspar called it a fantastic bet: it gave Wells two ways to win, and if it had come in, everyone chasing him would have needed a new number.
He finished seventh. He’s disappointed, he said, but still proud, because he stuck to his plan.
More 2026 Breeders’ Cup coverage: ITM’s Breeders’ Cup hub.
Quotes from Steven Wells on And The Tournament Winner Was with John Gaspar, an In the Money Media show presented by NYRA Bets Contests, Nov. 10, 2026.
