I’ve heard a lot of my horse buddies complaining about the lack of quality in horse racing these days. New York tracks have tons of state bred races. Even at Saratoga, they have to card turf sprints (horses that don’t have enough speed for dirt sprints nor enough stamina for traditional turf routes) to get full fields. California tracks have a storm of 5 and 6-horse fields as well, even at Del Mar.

A quick look at the Wednesday Saratoga entries illustrates the problem. Races 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7, are all maiden races. In other words, there will not be a horse that has won a race racing at Saratoga between 1:02 and 4:55 tomorrow afternoon. I realize that the 2-year old maiden special weight races can be strong up at the spa, but only Race 7 is one of those. Half of that sextet are claiming races.

If this is the premier race meet in America, what are the other tracks carding?

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Obviously, it would be exciting to have a Triple Crown winner, but I’m not rooting for Big Brown tomorrow. The connections make it nearly impossible to consider this horse any kind of “feel good” story.

The Trainer: A few years ago, I was getting some pretty good information from a horse racing source in New York on horses that improved form with no rhyme or reason. The commonality in the selections were a pair of trainers, and one of them was Rick Dutrow. It didn’t take a cynic to suspect that pharmacology helped these horses as much as anything else the trainer could do.

Having been suspended at least once a year in every year of his training career, Dutrow’s reputation for dishonesty is well-earned. With drug use by horses having weakened the breed as well as adding an overriding element of uncertainty and dishonesty to the sport, a trainer with the past (even recent past) of Dutrow doesn’t deserve the honor of training the first Triple Crown winner in 30 years.

The Owner: Another New Yorker had alerted me to Big Brown’s dishonorable owner a while back, and the media is finally paying attention. David Evans of Bloomberg did a fine job deconstructing the disreputable history and shady aspirations of Big Brown’s owner Michael Iavarone. Investors in Iavarone’s horsey hedge fund should arrange for their certain-to-follow binding arbitration in advance.

I’d love to see a Triple Crown winner. But it would be desirable to have the connections of that winner not leave a nasty trail of slime in their wake as they enter the Big Sandy winner’s circle following a sweep of the Triple Crown.

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The state of Delaware is considering the addition of a sports wagering component to their state lottery. It would probably be a hideously unfavorable parlay card offering of some sort. Despite the fact that it would only be available in 1954 of the nearly 3,600,000 square miles in the United States, the NFL is coming after this thing guns blazing, with a full page ad in a Delaware newspaper against the proposal.

The Preakness seems a walkover after the performance of Big Brown in the Kentucky Derby, but there are a couple of things that might make it worth checking out the past performances on Saturday.

Steve Crist of the Daily Racing Form pointed out earlier in the week that only 6 of the 14 odds-on Preakness favorites in the last 50 years have won the second jewel of the Triple Crown.

Additionally, the seeming overconfidence of Big Brown’s trainer Richard Dutrow before the Derby is gone, and Dutrow seems pretty realistic heading in this race. One of the horse’s owners expects him to bounce off the huge Derby effort. Dutrow admits that Big Brown won’t run as well on two weeks rest, though he does consider him to be the likely winner based on the lack of competition.

It is still tough to see Big Brown getting much of a challenge, but anything could happen, and that’s why they run around the track.

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I love the fact that the speed horses have all drawn outside in the Derby, and I’ll be betting against the favored Big Brown. This 20-horse race with huge exotic pools is one you can really justify spreading out in. Let’s take a look at every horse.

In post position order….

1. Cool Coal Man won at Churchill in the fall, but threw in a clunker over the track in the Kentucky Jockey’s Cup. Perfect at Gulfstream, and if you throw out his Bluegrass run over the Polytrack you can make a case for him. Beyers a bit light, but has won three of four from the inside post.

2. Tale of Ekati scored a nice win in the Wood, but is 3 for 3 at Belmont, 0 for 3 elsewhere. Trainer Tagg is great in graded stakes races, with a $2.76 return for every $2 bet.

3. Anak Nakal will be a long, long price, and justifiably so based on recent form. I know a smart guy who gives him a chance, but this horse has been 5th, 7th, and 8th in three races this year. Won here last year.

4. Court Vision won a Grade 3 here in October. Seems slow, but if you’re looking for deep closers, this is likely one.

5. Eight Belles is a filly and has never run against colts. Trainer Larry Jones is highly successful in the southwest, but this is the big leagues. But another smart guy I know likes her.

6. Z Fortune’s second in the Arkansas Derby may be as impressive as anything anyone has done here, as he was four-wide around both turns, losing a ton of ground.

7. Big Truck will be one of the longest shots on the board. Won the Tampa Bay Derby with a 93 Beyer but everything else has been 87 or less. Will need a fast race that falls apart because this closer just isn’t that fast.

8. Visionaire is a live longshot and was the only horse making up ground late in the Bluegrass over the Polytrack. Previous four races were all impressive and trainer Matz won here with Barbaro.

9. Pyro will likely be the third betting choice despite the horrendous clunker in the Bluegrass. If you toss that race due to the Polytrack (which everyone seems very willing to do) this horse is the most likely winner of all the closers.

10. Colonel John won the Santa Anita Derby, and the winner of that race is always a threat. But this horse has never raced on dirt before, with all six races over synthetic surfaces.

11. Z Humor has been 3rd, 4th, and 5th this year after earning $543,700 as a two-year old. Will be close to the pace, which I don’t like to see.

12. Smooth Air finished second to Big Brown’s monstrous performance in the Florida Derby after winning the Grade 2 Hutcheson New Year’s Week. Trainer Stutts not used to this level. Makes up ground in the stretch and tough to toss out.

13. Bob Black Jack has led every step of the way in all three of his wins, which is nearly impossible in this race. Obviously talented but as never raced on dirt (get used to California contenders with nothing but synthetic experience).

14. Monba only raced twice all year. Fountain of Youth was a disaster before winning the Bluegrass over Polytrack. Pletcher famously poor as a trainer in this race. Can you trust the Polytrack performance?

15. Adriano ran ninth in his only dirt race of his career, but you have to figure that Prado had other options and he’s on this one’s back.

16. Denis of Cork seems too slow but has won 3 of 4 lifetime and made up over 20 lengths in his Southwest win at Oaklawn. Calvin Borel won this one last year up the rail.

17. Cowboy Cal is a speed-oriented horse used to racing on turf and Polytrack.

18. Recapturetheglory paid $33.80 in the Illinois Derby but seems a need-to-lead horse and is surrounded by speed.

19. Gayego won the Arkansas Derby in his only dirt performance. Veteran jock Mike Smith knows this race and will try to avoid being right on the lead, preferring to rate just behind the pace. Has a shot if he can avoid getting caught up in the outside speed.

20. Big Brown ran monsters in all three of his three career races, but is obviously light on experience. Plenty of speed outside along with him. Don’t trust Dutrow in the big leagues and will play against him and hope the pace cooks him.

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Why bet before a horse race when you can wait until it has already started? Seven and a half years after the 2002 Breeders Cup Pick Six scandal led Andrew Beyer to write about widespread assumptions among horseplayers that races were being past-posted, Bloodhorse.com reports that there are still documented instances of wagering after the start of horse races. And who knows how many go undiscovered or are swept under the rug by track and tote officials who don’t want to upset the apple cart?

Lexington, Kentucky bettor Mike Maloney has been conducting a one-man crusade to correct this situation. Maloney points out that tracks do not record the time that gates open to the second, it is only reported to the minute. In the Bloodhorse article linked to above, Maloney correctly comments “that this could happen this deep into the simulcasting age is just mind-boggling.”

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Every 18 years, Andrew Beyer journeys to the Southern Hemisphere in an effort to become the dominant horse betting force in his host country. Beyer’s work ethic is legendary, but shouldn’t he have noticed the 29% takeout and small wagering pools in the midst of his year of research into Argentinian racing?

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Turning A Toothpick into a Lumberyard: A British fertilizer salesman collected 2,000,000-1 on a 50 pence (about a buck) wager. The natural odds on Freddie Crags’ 8-horse parlay were actually about 2,800,000-1, but William Hill has a million-pound cap on payouts.

Funding Crags’ Hit: Don’t Cry for William Hill, as greyhound trainer Graham Calvert lost over 2,000,000 pounds (yep, about $4 million bucks) to the bookmaking firm. Calvert is suing the company for allowing him to continue to wager on the phone after they agreed to ban him.

World’s Dumbest Industry? Andrew Beyer gives the latest rundown on the fratricide within the horse racing industry that keeps many bettors from being able to wager on the high-profile tracks they favor. Alienating the public with these turf wars will only escalate the descent of this rapidly declining sport.

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Alan Woods, who was among the first to win big money handicapping and wagering on horse racing via sophisticated computer-aided methods, has died in Hong Kong. He was 62.

Woods commandeered a successful gambling operation that allowed him to build a half-billion dollar fortune. This lengthy article, which has a bit of age on it (I first read it a couple of years ago), gives some interesting details about how he managed to extract so much money out of the massive wagering pools in Hong Kong, as well as the lifestyle one lives when he wins a few hundred million at the races.

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I haven’t offered more than a passing glance at a Racing Form past performance since June, so thanks to you guys who keep me updated with interesting horse notes like the following:

More than five years after the 2002 Breeder’s Cup pick six results was won in illicit fashion by past-posting the early legs of the sequence, the integrity of the parimutuel wagering system still leaves much to be desired. At a racing conference one gentlemen showed tangible proof that he was able to wager from Keeneland in Lexington, Kentucky on a race at the Fair Grounds in New Orleans more than 45 seconds after the race had started.

Check out the Race 5, 6, 7 Pick 3 on New Year’s Day at Aqueduct. $57,000 pool and only $2 had the winning combination. After scratches (sloppy track) there were only 8, 7, and 8 horses in the three fields, so you would think at least a couple of people would have hit it wheeling with one of the winning longshots, but only a pair of $1 tickets split the entire pool.

Given a forum in The New York Times, the inimitable Steve Crist blasts the corrupt and wasteful OTB system in New York.

That’s it. Your next horse racing update will be some time in the next 365 days or so.

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Here’s another 25 items of interest to those who don’t mind placing a wager or two on the games they enjoy.

1. First downs aren’t the most valuable stat in football, but they can tell you a lot about a team’s ability to sustain offense. In an average performance an NFL team will get 18 or 19 first downs in a game. A look at some first down numbers show some abominable offensive performances last weekend. Five NFL teams had 11 first downs or less. The Vikings had 11 yet somehow managed to beat the Niners. The Rams, Raiders, and Panthers had 10 each in losing by a combined 94-23. The Chiefs were held to a putrid 7 first downs in their 41-7 shellacking at the hands of the Broncos.
2. So what did these clubs have in common? They were all on the road. But more importantly, their starting quarterbacks were Tarvaris Jackson, Brock Berlin, Josh McCown, Vinny Testaverde, and Brodie Croyle. There is simply a dearth of quality quarterbacks in the NFL.
3. The fact that the pass-first quarterback is not exactly the rage in college football isn’t going to do anything to feed better young quarterbacks into the league.
4. In a not-unrelated note, favorites went 12-4 in the NFL last weekend.
5. For a while it looked like Jack Pardee was going to get hired to replace Art Briles (moved on to Baylor) at Houston. And they were serious. Briles will turn 72 during spring practice.
6. Neither of the two “finalists” in the article on Pardee was hired. Instead the Cougar job goes to Oklahoma co-offensive coordinator Kevin Sumlin, who becomes the eighth minority coach in Division 1-A football.
7. While still calling them Breeders’ Cup races, Friday appears to becoming the Cup’s version of the Busch Series. Was there that big of a need for a race for two-year old turf fillies? A mile-and-a-half dirt marathon? Not that I mind having more races to bet on, but there’s some dilution of the title “Breeders’ Cup Champion”, isn’t there?
8. Clemens? Of course. Tejada? Obviously. But I wouldn’t have taken 200-1 odds that Hal Morris would have been on that list. Hal Morris had 76 home runs in 3,998 career at bats. It would be a challenge to find a first baseman who played 10+ years in the majors with lower power numbers than Hal Morris. I guess there’s juicing and then there’s juicing correctly.
9. Still no test for HGH in MLB.
10. It is easy to forget exactly how quiet “exam week” is in college basketball. Including the “added” board, there are only 18 total bettable games from Monday through Friday in all of college hoops.
11. My Strategic Sports Publishing basketball selection service is off to another great start this season. We’re hitting over 60% in both college (65.7%) and pro (61.5%) hoops. Since the start of last season in the Sports Monitor’s regular season college basketball rankings we’ve notched a 113-64 (64.5%) mark. For information on this service, call 1-770-649-1078 for rates and details.
12. The vast majority of our college hoops plays are sides, but you may have noticed that college totals are going up later and later, at lower and lower limits, and are moving quicker and quicker?
13. The International Olympic Committee considers illegal gambling to be a significant threat and is eager to work with legal wagering firms in an effort to track the action on Olympic sports. The IOC understands that the paper trail that legal, licensed wagering provides is essential.
14. Yet here in the US, street bookies are once again flourishing due to Bill Frist’s ill-conceived legislation from last fall.
15. Of course offshore and online sports books really aren’t doing that badly, and it isn’t nearly as difficult to withdraw and collect as the media suggests.
16. We’ve been telling you for months now how important the Antigua vs. US case is in front of the World Trade Organization. It looks like a decision may be imminent in the online gambling dispute.
17. Southern Miss hired Larry Fedora as their new head coach. A tip of the hat to Fedora, the former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator.
18. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. I actually stole that line from Marc Lawrence, who used it while I was guesting on his radio show.
19. The “calling of the hogs” was the most entertaining part of the Bobby Petrino press conference, but the lack of challenging questions from the “reporters” in Arkansas was the most striking. Tony Barnhart has a few that could have been asked had the sports media in Fayeteville not been so compliant.
20. Petrino’s old boss, Tom Jurich, the AD at Louisville, says that his former coach is now “five for five”, actively looking for a new job each of the past five seasons. That’s just one of the nuggets in Pat Forde’s terrific takedown of Petrino.
21. There are some bad actors on the Falcons, but Warrick Dunn and Joey Harrington, good soldiers throughout a difficult year, offer some illuminating examples of Petrino as a guy who was completely overmatched.
22. Petrino overshadowed a couple of other coaching moves in the SEC this week. A couple of years ago Al Borges was the toast of the town in Auburn, Alabama. But the offensive coordinator was let go by Tommy Tuberville this week.
23. After not capturing the Southern Miss job, Tyrone Nix becomes the defensive coordinator at Ole’ Miss for Houston Nutt. It is a lateral move in title, but a $100,000 raise for Nix. Steve Spurrier might not mind Nix’s departure after the injury-fueled late season collapse by his defense.
24. Handicappers Matty Baiungo and Erik Scheponik share a well-done and successful free selection phone. Call this 24-hour voice mail broadcast at 1-404-250-7555 for solid winning information. I’m a contributor on a similar effort at 1-770-618-8700.
25. Back next week with a bowl-heavy effort. Have a great weekend.

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