A field of more than 1,000 handicappers descended on the Horseshoe Las Vegas for one final opportunity to earn a spot in the field for the 27^th annual National Horseplayers Championship (NHC) in the NTRA Last Chance/First Chance tournament on Thursday, March 12. The contest winner was Michelle Mount of Glendora, Calif., who took home a first prize of $30,130 and qualified for the NHC main event starting on Friday.

Mount built a solid lead in the afternoon portion of the tournament and then held on by a $0.24 winning margin over runner-up Evan Littman from Murrieta, Calif., who hit the winner in the final race of the tournament in race 2 at Turfway Park but came up just cents short of payoff that would be enough to win.

Packed capacity at Last Chance/First Chance. (NTRA Photo)

Originally conceived to be one final mega opportunity for players to get into the NHC field on the eve of the main event, the Last Chance/First Chance tournament has grown rapidly through the years to the point where now it is one of the biggest handicapping tournaments of the year as a standalone event. The total purse of the contest was $167,587, which was distributed to the top 10 finishers.

On a day when winning longshots were scarce in 55 contest races from seven tracks, Mount built her winning total by picking mid-priced winners in the 5-1 odds range. Players attempted to build the highest winning payoffs from total of 11 optional and mandatory $2 win-and-place bets. Mount’s tournament-winning score was $106.70 which proved to be just enough to hold off Littman’s $106.46 total. Littman won $27,159 for second and also qualified for the NHC.

While the $167,587 cash purse is a significant added bonus, the majority of the purse of the Last Chance/First Chance tournament’s purse is accounted for by the NHC qualifying spots it offers. The Last Chance/First Chance tournament offered a total of 47 NHC qualifying berths including 32 qualifiers for the 2026 NHC finals and 15 more qualifiers for the next NHC finals in March 2027. A full list of Last Chance/First Chance qualifiers, and all other NHC tournament information can be found at www.NTRA.com/NHC.

Third-place finisher Jon Petoskey finished about $10 behind the top two finishers with a contest total of $96.04 and earned a third prize of $24,187. Charles Bernhardt was fourth and won $21,216. Eddie Inman was fifth for an $18,244 prize.

Former NHC Champion and new NHC hall of famer Chris Littlemore finished sixth in the NHC Last Chance and earned a $15,273 prize.

The remainder of the top 10 finishers along with their cash prizes were Chuck O’Mara ($12,302), Evan Topol ($9,330), Jim Brown ($6,359), and Michael Warren ($3,387).

The 27th National Horseplayers Tournament takes place on March 13-15 at the Horseshoe Las Vegas. The purse of the NHC main event has been finalized at $3,238,000.