HRN’s Rowan Ward wins on ‘Jeopardy,’ plays again Thursday
Rowan Ward, a Chicago racing journalist and an Equibase chart caller at Hawthorne who does free-lance editing for Horse Racing Nation, won their way into the finals of the “Jeopardy” second-chance tournament with a runaway victory that aired across the country on Wednesday.
The win was spurred by an all-in bet that risked $10,600 early in Double Jeopardy. It qualified Ward to play in the two-day final of the current half of the invitational event that brought back some of the most competitive players who lost in their first appearances during the past two seasons. That final airs Thursday and Friday with the winner getting the last berth in the Tournament of Champions that starts Monday.
Ward went into Final Jeopardy with $26,800, a total that was $19,600 more than their nearest competitor. In the category Charity, the answer was, “A Catholic charity called Caritas Rome is the beneficiary of money collected from here, over the years averaging about $3,500 daily.”
Ward was the only contestant who correctly responded, “What is Trevi Fountain?” They risked $10,000 and finished with a total of $36,800, winning by $30,401 over Minneapolis sports writer Do-Hyoung Park of MLB.com and $35,001 over Silver Spring, Md., educational consultant and business owner Nikkee Porcaro.
The game was blown open, though, early in Double Jeopardy. On the fifth clue of the round, Ward hit the first Daily Double in the category Law Slaw. With $10,600 and a lead of $7,800, Ward said, “Ken, I’m going to make it a true Daily Double.”
With some of the studio audience gasping in astonishment, host and record-holding former champion Ken Jennings said, “Well, not something we always see with that $8,000 lead, but all right.”
The answer was, “Political advertising was at the heart of the 2010 case pitting this group against the Federal Election Commission.”
Ward quickly and correctly responded, “What is Citizens United?” The rest of the game was a foregone conclusion.
“In a law category with that many clues left, I was never not going all in,” Ward said in a text message Wednesday night.
Ward was correct on 30 of their 34 responses, Park 14 of 18 and Porcaro 7 of 9, according to the J-Archive fan site.
Ward’s first “Jeopardy” episode aired Friday, Aug. 13, 2021, when they put a scare into eventual 38-game winner Matt Amodio. With exactly half of Amodio’s score, Ward bet everything in Final Jeopardy, responded incorrectly and finished last. Amodio was the only correct questioner, so he would have won by the $1 he bet even if Ward had the right response. Guest-hosted by Joe Buck, it was the final episode of the 2020-21 season.
The episodes airing this week were recorded last month at Sony Pictures Studio in Culver City, Calif. Ward was contractually bound not to reveal the outcome of the game until it aired. The same goes for the episodes showing Thursday and Friday.