An all-in bet in the Longines Classic was the deciding factor in the 18^th annual Breeders’ Cup Betting Challenge (BCBC) handicapping tournament as Robert Dolan, a 45-year-old financial advisor from Saratoga Springs, N.Y., nailed the final race of the contest and took home the event’s lucrative first prize.

Down to a $4,495 total in the final race of the Breeders’ Cup from an original $7,500 buy-in, Dolan wagered his entire remaining bankroll on a straight exacta in the Classic on Sovereignty over 17-1 longshot The Puma. The bet won and the resulting exacta that paid $31.30 for each $1 bet returned $140,694 and gave Dolan the BCBC victory by roughly a $10,000 margin over runner-up Clay Sanders, the co-founder of the Ten Strike Racing horse ownership syndicate, who settled for second.

BCBC winner Robert Dolan (NTRA Photo)

In addition to his real-money bankroll, Dolan won the tournament’s $467,000 top prize payout. Dolan’s pari-mutuel earnings and prize money brought his total take-home payday amount to $607,694.

The BCBC tournament presents deep-pocketed horseplayers a chance to hit the score of a lifetime by betting big money into the huge Breeders’ Cup pari-mutuel pools. Dolan beat a field of seasoned handicapping tournament high rollers to earn the top prize in the official handicapping tournament of horse racing’s Breeders’ Cup World Championships.

Dolan’s winning entry sat in 267^th-place in the BCBC leaderboard going into the Classic and had saved enough bankroll to win the tournament with his top two picks in the race – Sovereignty and The Puma.

“I rank my opinions going into the contest, so I know where to emphasize,” Dolon told the HHH Racing Podcast. “I was shooting for 20x bankroll, so $150,000, then in the mid-tournament I write down the basic math of, ‘What do I need going into the last race.’”

Dolan’s resulting winning payoff fell a bit short of the $150,000 he was shooting for, but it still proved to be enough for the tournament victory.

The 2026 BCBC carried a total purse of $1.67 million, which was paid out on a sliding scale to the top 25 finishers. The purse of the handicapping tournament actually was higher than the purse of many of the weekend’s actual Breeders’ Cup championship races.

The BCBC’s format puts $7,500 of a player’s $10,000 event entry fee toward a real-money bankroll while putting the other $2,500 into the extensive prize fund that gets returned to the top 25 finishers in the form of purse money. Entrants must bet a minimum of $600 per race (no maximum) on at least three Breeders’ Cup races on Friday and seven Breeders’ Cup races on Saturday. Permitted wager types are win, place, show, exacta, trifecta, and daily doubles excluding special doubles.

The 2026 BCBC attracted a record field of 668 entries, which was up from 643 entries in 2025. The event continues to grow year-over-year after 585 entries competed in 2024. The BCBC also annually serves as a 15-seat qualifier for the next National Horseplayers Championship (NHC), which will be held in Las Vegas on March 5-7, 2026. The NHC is the only existing tournament with a richer purse than the BCBC, annually in excess of $4 million.

The highest number of 2026 BCBC players participated on-track from the Breeders’ Cup host site at Keeneland Race Course, but players were also allowed to play at the official satellite on-track location at Santa Anita Park, or online at ADW platforms like Twinspires, Xpressbet.com, TVG, NYRAbets.com, HPIbet.com, or at the official wagering partner of the Breeders’ Cup at TVG.com. Fourteen of the top 25 finishers competed on track at Keeneland.

Dolan competed in the BCBC tournament on his phone using Twinspires.com while physically on track at Gulfstream Park in Florida.

“There was probably 10-12 of us in the room and when they crossed the wire (in the Classic) there was just a lot of yelling and screaming,” Dolan said.

Second-place finisher Clay Sanders from Memphis, Tenn., played the tournament on Xpressbet.com. He built an impressive pari-mutuel total of his own with a $130,847 bankroll and added second purse money of approximately $311,700 for a total payday just over $442,500. Sanders has been active on the NHC Tour in recent years and has qualified for the NHC) five years. His big bankroll-building win of the tournament came with a winning $6,000 daily double on Benvenuto Cellini and Sovereignty that returned $88,260.

Dolan is a relatively new tournament player who had just competed in his first-ever NHC earlier in 2026 when he finished in 58^th place which was good for $12,000 in purse money. He was playing in his second edition of the BCBC, and earlier this year had scored a lucrative tournament in the Preakness Handicapping Challenge.

One of the things that Dolan mentioned got him interested in handicapping tournaments was the strategic horse handicapping book “A Bettor Way of Thinking” by Matt Miller – and by a stroke of happenstance, it was Miller, a retired corporate attorney from Northbrook, Ill., that finished third in the 2026 BCBC with a final bankroll of $125,200, which all came from a winning $4,000 exacta bet on Sovereignty over The Puma.

Finishing fourth with $107,458 was Allen Harberg, who played the tournament on-track at Keeneland. He had taken the lead in the next-to-last race of the BCBC with a $12,700 win bet on Benvenuto Cellini, who paid $8.52 to win the Longines Breeders’ Cup Turf. Veteran race caller and tournament player Vic Stauffer played on TVG.com and finished fifth with a final bankroll of $97,000, thanks in large part to a $20,000 win Bet on T O Elvis in the Cygames Breeders’ Cup Sprint that returned $75,800. Matt Mahmoodi finished sixth with a bankroll of $92,336 playing on Xpressbet.

The 2024 BCBC winner Steven Wells from Fordville, N.D., finished seventh in 2026 with a final bankroll of $85,518. The rest of the top 10 were well-known tournament players Benjamin Beychok ($78,918) in eighth, Ken Jordan ($73,551) in ninth, and Michael Mulvihill ($73,550) in tenth. Note the $1 margin between ninth and tenth places.

Other recent winners of the BCBC included 2025 champion Dave Smyth, a 50-year-old financial advisor from Lexington, Ky. who topped a field of 635 entries to take home total winnings of $607,800, and Sean Boarman, a 43-year-old professional gambler from Lexington Ky., who topped a field of 571 in 2023. Drew Coatney, a 34-year-old racing fan, booked an all-in ticket on Flightline to top a field of 549 BCBC entries in 2022.