07/24/2008 - Saratoga Springs, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Salvator Mile winner Notional will go after a second "Win and You're In" victory on Saturday in the $750,000 Whitney Handicap at Saratoga. The winner of the 1 1/8 mile Whitney gains automatic entry into the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Santa Anita on Saturday, October 25.
Notional's victory in the Salvator Mile at Monmouth Park earlier this month put him into the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile which will be run on Santa Anita's synthetic surface. This year's Breeders' Cup will be conducted for the first time on an all-weather main track.
Lawyer Ron won last year's Whitney is a stakes and track record time of 1:46.64 for the nine-furlongs.
Owned by J. Paul Reddam and trained by Mark Hennig, Notional will start from post three in the 11 horse field with Edgar Prado riding. The four-year-old colt has won four of 11 career starts for $695,740.
Last year Notional won the San Rafael and Risen Star Stakes. His last race as a three-year-old was the Florida Derby when he was second to Scat Daddy. A broken leg ended his 2007 season.
Commentator, winner of the 2005 Whitney, has drawn the inside post with John Velazquez getting the riding assignment. The seven-year-old gelding, trained by Hall of Famer Nick Zito for Tracy Farmer, will be making his first start at 1 1/8 miles since he finished third in the 2005 Woodward to Saint Liam.
The veteran runner is coming off a second-place finish to Divine Park in the Metropolitan Mile Handicap at Belmont Park on Memorial Day. Commentator has lifetime earnings of $1,091,936 in 18 starts with 11 wins.
Pimlico Special champ Student Council is expected to receive a lot of attention from the betting public. The six-year-old will break from post 10 with Shaun Bridgmohan back to ride.
Student Council has earned just under $1.4 million in his 28 race career with eight victories. Trained by Steve Asmussen for W.S. Farish, Student Council is coming back from a third-place result to Mast Track in last month's Hollywood Gold Cup. Last year he won both the Hawthorne Gold Cup and the Pacific Classic, and is expected to make his next start in the Pacific Classic at Del Mar on August 24.
Here is the complete field for the Whitney Handicap in post position order: Commentator, John Velazquez; Solar Flare, Gabriel Saez; Notional, Edgar Prado; Cowtown Cat, Rafael Bejarano; Merchant Marine, Rajiv Maragh; Tasteyville, Michael Luzzi; Rising Moon, Cornelio Velasquez; Grasshopper, Robby Albarado; A. P. Arrow, Ramon Dominguez; Student Council, Shaun Bridgmohan and Timber Reserve, Javier Castellano.
Post-time for the 81st Whitney Handicap is scheduled for 5:46 p.m. (et) and will be televised on ABC.
<< Chelsea hopes to lure Robinho away from Real
London, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chelsea chief executive Peter Kenyon has
reiterated his club's desire to make Real Madrid's Brazilian forward Robinho
its final summer purchase.
The 24-year-old has been the subject of frenzied specu
<< Ortiz to make return Friday
Boston, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz, who has been
sidelined since the end of May due to a torn tendon sheath in his left wrist,
is slated to make his return to the lineup on Friday.
The announcement came Thursda
<< Toronto tops Baltimore in rain-suspended conclusion
Baltimore, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Lyle Overbay went 2-for-4 with a run batted
in, and Toronto pitching racked up 11 strikeouts as the Blue Jays topped the
Baltimore Orioles, 5-1, in the conclusion of a game that was suspended in the
sixth i
<< Phillies' Rollins late scratch from lineup
Flushing, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins was a
late scratch from Thursday's series finale against the New York Mets with an
undisclosed ailment.
Eric Bruntlett started at short and batted leadoff in place of Rollins,
Romero, Vaughan share lead at Senior British Open >>
Ayrshire, Scotland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eduardo Romero and Bruce Vaughan opened
with rounds of three-under 68 on Thursday to share the lead after the first
round of the Senior British Open Championship.
Andy Bean, John Cook, Kirk Hanefel
Liverpool's Leto to join Olympiakos on loan >>
Liverpool, England (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Liverpool's Argentinian midfielder
Sebastian Leto is set to spend next season out on loan with Greek side
Olympiakos.
The 21-year-old made four appearances for the Reds last season an
Andersen heads back to Denver >>
Denver, CO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Denver Nuggets signed forward Chris Andersen
to an undisclosed contract Thursday.
The 6-foot-10, 228-pound versatile forward began his career with Denver in the
2001-02 campaign. After spending three seas
Halladay Inn! Jays leave O's feeling blue >>
Baltimore, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Roy Halladay was his usual efficient self on
the hill, allowing just one run through seven innings in Toronto's 7-1 triumph
over the Baltimore Orioles in the finale of their four-game series.
Before Hallada
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their “supplements” to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this won’t be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a “truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit.” And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. “The plug-necked yahoos on your team,” you can say, “will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.”
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesn’t focus only on your opponent’s team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Where’s your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, “I’ll try to type slower for you next time.” Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, don’t just conclude by saying your opponent is a “twerp who drafts like my grandmother.” Say that your opponent is a “sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars.” By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You won’t be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, I’m sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
Rule No. 1 in the gamblers' handbook states, "Avoid sports betting on meaningless games."
When you're drowning in a sea of baseball monotony, however, things change. Even a hint of pro football betting can persuade the most disciplined bettor to break a few rules.
The NFL preseason is around the corner, with a tempting Hall of Fame match kicking off on Sunday. But bettors must stay vigilant. Wagering on NFL exhibition games is an entirely different beast than the regular season. Most fans don't recognize the players on the field because starters get as much action in August as Warcraft fans get on Prom night.
The only certainty about the NFL this time of year is uncertainty – and yet there are some who say betting in August can be a gold mine.
“I actually feel the NFL preseason presents solid profit opportunities for sharp bettors and handicappers,” Sports Expert Steve Merril explains. “My experience has been that the sportsbooks fear the preseason, which is evident by lower limits and massive moves.”
The line moves are attributed to the limited knowledge available regarding playing-time distribution. One team’s top unit out on the field for one more series has an impact on the pointspread. Setting lines in the preseason often is a shot in the dark.
“We base the betting lines mostly on public perception,” Pete Korner, founder of the Sports Club in Las Vegas, says. “It’s very tough to predict, almost a guessing game.”
The preseason is all about figuring out who’s in and for how long.
“It becomes a race between bettors and oddsmakers to find out how long the quarterbacks are going to stay in,” Korner admits. “If a sharp gets the information first, he could exploit an early line. I’m a full believer in moving the line in the preseason if the books find out something late in the week.”
Determining what each team’s motive is can help bettors handicap. To do this you must pay close attention to the philosophies head coaches employ in exhibition play.
“You need to know what a coach is trying to accomplish,” says Covers Expert Bryan Leonard. “Sometimes a new coach will want to instill a winning attitude. Others just want to make sure their starters don’t get hurt."
So how do you distinguish who’s playing scared and who’s playing for keeps?
“Head coaches on the hot seat or new coaches trying to implement a winning attitude usually try harder to win in the preseason,” Merril says.
Cleveland Browns head coach Romeo Crennel fits this criteria. He’s entering his third season as the sideline boss and has yet to lead the Browns to more than six wins.
Cleveland is an enticing bet as well because of the unresolved quarterback situation. General manager Phil Savage sacrificed the Browns’ first-round pick in next year’s draft for Brady Quinn, but the former Notre Dame quarterback hasn’t signed or reported to training camp yet.
Charlie Frye and Derek Anderson split time at QB last season and it looks like either player (or even Quinn) could be the opening-day starter.
“If a team has quarterback depth and the pecking order hasn’t been decided, it’s a big advantage,” Leonard says.
Even in the third week of the preseason when starters generally play the most, the final outcome of the game is in the hands of fringe players. A team's talent, all the way down to the last man on the roster, is something to consider.
The New England Patriots have long been considered one of the deeper teams in the NFL and coach Bill Belichick has said in the past he’s unafraid of stars getting hurt in games with nothing on the line. He shocked his colleagues in 2003 by playing some of his starters on special teams in the preseason.
“We want to have the team ready to play a tough, physical game and preparation has to go into that and I imagine a certain amount of injuries go with it,” Belichick told the Providence Journal in August 2003.
Bettors can only hope to find more teams that share the Pats' business-like approach to the preseason (New England is 17-9-3 against the spread since 2000) and take advantage of teams who detest the exhibition schedule.
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