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03/11/2010 - Hot Springs, AR (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Champion colt Lookin at Lucky tops a field of seven three-year-olds in Saturday's $300,000 Rebel Stakes at Oaklawn Park. The 2009 champion two-year-old will be making his first start of the year in the 1 1/16-mile race.
The Rebel is the final local prep race before the $1 million Arkansas Derby, set for Saturday, April 10.
Trained by Bob Baffert, Lookin at Lucky will be ridden by Garrett Gomez and leave from the two post. The Rebel will be the colt's first start outside of California.
"We have a lot of questions that have to be answered," Baffert said, "wearing blinkers for the first time in a race and running on dirt for the first time. The closer you get to the Kentucky Derby (May 1), the better off you are knowing the answers."
Lookin at Lucky, owned by Karl Watson, Mike Pegram and Paul Weltman, was second to Vale of York in the Breeders'Cup Juvenile last November, but came back to win the CashCall Futurity the following month at Hollywood Park.
"It always looks like he's stretched to win," Gomez said following the CashCall win, "but that's not the case. He's going to learn more as he goes along because he's got a super mind to him. We've got to get him to where he puts his competition away and sprints to the wire. He's full of talent and I'm getting even more excited about him."
The colt has won five of six starts for more than $1.2 million.
Southwest Stakes winner Conveyance, also trained by Baffert, will make his next start in the $800,000 Sunland Derby on Sunday, March 28.
Southwest runner-up Dublin, trained by D. Wayne Lukas, will start from the far outside post with Corey Nakatani riding. The chestnut colt will be making his second start of 2010 for owners Robert Baker and William Mack.
Dublin came from the back of the field in the Southwest to lose by just three- quarters of a length. Nakatani will be aboard the colt for the first time in the race.
In 2009 Dublin won the Hopeful at Saratoga, but then finished fifth in the Chamgagne and seventh in the Iroquois. With two wins in six career starts he has earnings of $278,623.
Taking another shot at Lookin at Lucky is Noble's Promise, trained by Ken McPeek. Noble's Promise will break from post six with Robby Albarado riding.
Owned by Chasing Dreams Racing, the colt was third in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile and second in the CashCall Futurity. He won the Fitz Dixon Stakes at Presque Isle Downs and Keeneland's Breeders' Futurity Stakes.
Noble's Promise career record shows three wins from six starts and earnings of $733,500.
Here is the complete field for the Rebel in post position order: Cardiff Giant, Christian Santiago Reyes; Lookin at Lucky, Garrett Gomez; Royal Express, Perry Compton; Uh Oh Bango, Glenn Corbett; Pleasant Storm, Jon Court; Noble's Promise, Robby Albarado and Dublin, Corey Nakatani.
Post-time for the 50th running of the Rebel is scheduled for 6:47 p.m. (et).
<< United enters into partnership with Japanese club
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Zelvia have entered into a technical, developmental and marketing partnership,
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Toronto, Canada (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - As the boys of summer prepare for the
upcoming MLB season, the ones north of the border are sure to get some extra
attention.
Tracking some of Canada's top players for the MLB 2010 season:
HITTERS
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<< Lions bring back OT Jansen
Allen Park, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Lions re-signed veteran
offensive tackle Jon Jansen and linebacker Vinny Ciurciu to one-year contracts
on Thursday. Financial terms were not disclosed.
The 34-year-old Jansen signed wit
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Kansas City, MO (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Kansas City Chiefs have signed wide
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Urban spent the past three seasons with Arizona after playing his first three
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Real's Pellegrini given vote of confidence >>
Madrid, Spain (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Real Madrid Technical Director Jorge Valdano
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Real
Hoyas knocked top-seeded Orange in Big East >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chris Wright scored 27 points and Greg Monroe
contributed 17 with 10 rebounds and seven assists, as 22nd-ranked Georgetown
pulled off a 91-84 victory over No. 3 Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big
East To
Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament Recaps >>
Greensboro, NC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sammy Zeglinski scored a season-high 21
points to lead Virginia to a 68-62 victory over Boston College in the first
round of the ACC Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum.
Virginia (15-15), seeded ni
Hoyas knock off top-seeded Orange in Big East >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chris Wright scored 27 points and Greg Monroe
contributed 17 with 10 rebounds and seven assists, as 22nd-ranked Georgetown
pulled off a 91-84 victory over No. 3 Syracuse in the quarterfinals of the Big
East To
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 wont 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 doesnt focus only on your opponents 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. Wheres 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, dont 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 wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im 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.
In any football or basketball game (the main sports that use point spreads) there are two teams playing against each other.
Those teams, though, are rarely exactly evenly matched – meaning that typically one team has a better chance than the other to win the game. If bettors were allowed to bet on who was simply going to win the game, smart ones would obviously bet on the better team (likely winning more than 50% of the time in the process).
If winning were that easy the Las Vegas and online sportsbooks would stop taking any bets! This is where the point spread comes in: the basic function of the point spread is to balance the likelihood of each team “winning” by adjusting the final score by the point spread. After this adjustment is made you get the Against The Spread result (ATS result for short).
Let’s look at Super Bowl XXXIX, New England Patriots vs. Philadelphia Eagles. Most people believed the defending champ Patriots to be the better team – so if betting were simply based upon which team would win the game, an uneven majority of people would have wagered on New England. But, by using the point spread, the bookmakers adjusted the terms of the bet, evening the proposition so about half the people believed the Pats to be the smart bet, while the other half considered Philly to be the smart bet.
New England Patriots -7 vs. Philadelphia Eagles
The better team, called the Favorite, is expected to win the game and must “give” or “lay” points to the weaker team. The favorite is listed with a minus sign and the number of points they are favored by (e.g., New England -7)
In the case of our example, New England must not only win the game, but they must win by more than 7 points for Pats bettors to have a winning ATS result. An Eagles bettor wins his bet either if:
There was also the possibility that the final score could land exactly on the spread number (for example, the Pats winning 28-21 when -7), which is called a “push” or “no action” and a refund is then issued to bettors of both teams.
The same game with the same point spread can be considered from the weaker team’s perspective: The Underdog (Philly in the case of our example) is not expected to win the game and thus receives or “gets” points given by the stronger team. When a game is stated from the underdog’s perspective the team is listed with a plus sign and the number of points they are underdogs by:
Philadelphia Eagles +7 vs. New England Patriots
Keep in mind that Philadelphia +7 and New England -7 is the same point spread on the same game, simply stated differently. The first is from the underdog’s perspective; the later is from the favorite’s.
Not a must, but for some a mathematical approach is insightful. You can determine the ATS winner by either:
Let’s look at the actual result of Super Bowl XXXIX: New England 24 Philadelphia 21
The favorite, New England, won the game but not by more than the point spread they were favored by (7), so the ATS result was a LOSS for Pats bettors.
Looking at it from the underdog’s perspective, Philly did not win the game, but they lost by less than the point spread (7), so the ATS result was a WIN for Eagle bettors.
Mathematically considered, 24 for the favorite Pats minus 7 equals 17, which is less than the 20 the Eagles scored, so the underdog Eagles win the ATS result (or you could figure 20 plus 7 equals 27 for the Eagles, which is more than 24 for the Pats).
Emily’s boyfriend understood the point spread and wagered $100 on the Eagles at +7. The Eagles may not have gotten a Super Bowl ring, but since they won the ATS result Emily’s boyfriend cashed his bet – giving him money to take her out to a nice dinner.
And now hopefully you understand how to read point spreads, putting you one step closer to joining the fun of sports betting.
To visit this internet sportsbook go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting and World Series odds.
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