Horse Racing News is the source of thoroughbred racing information with horse racing odds, betting tips, racing picks, race results, and handicapping. Latest news and articles on top horse racing contenders, jockeys, trainers, three-year-olds, race tracks, and major stakes races such as the Triple Crown races: the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes as well as the Breeders' Cup horse races.Handicapping Open update
Posted on Friday, May 19th, 2006
Five Finalists Qualify Saturday in Handicapping Open
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Barbaro attempts to complete America’s three Classic races
Posted on Thursday, May 18th, 2006
Barbaro, who won the Kentucky Derby last week, does not have such first-step blemish. And, despite the historic difficulty of winning America’s three Classic races, the racing world is abuzz with the possibility that he can add the Preakness Stakes and Belmont Stakes to his undefeated career record.
The 131st running of the $1 million Preakness Stakes (Gr. 1) will take place at Pimlico Race Course in Baltimore on Saturday, May 20. The 138th Running of the $1 million Belmont Stakes (Gr. 1), an entire 1 ½-mile loop around the Belmont Main Track, will go to post on Saturday, June 10.
Limited reserved seats for Belmont Stakes Day are still available. For more information, call (516) 488-6000 X732.
Additionally, there is always space for thousands of fans in first-come, first-served seating. The Grandstand, Backyard and Trackside Apron area offer plenty of free benches, chairs and picnic tables. General admission is just $5. Clubhouse Admission is $10.
Belmont Stakes Day features a 13-race card that begins with a first race post time of noon. (Parking gates open at 8:15 a.m. and admission gates open at 8:30 a.m.) The Belmont Stakes will be the 11th race and go to post at approximately 6:35 p.m. Also on the card will be the $400,000 Manhattan Handicap (Gr. 1), the $200,000 True North (Gr. 2), the $250,000 Woody Stephens Breeders’ Cup (Gr. 2), the $300,000 Just A Game (Gr. 2) and the $250,000 Acorn (Gr. 1). The 13th and last race will go to post at approximately 7:50 p.m.
Coolers are permitted in Belmont Park’s backyard area, but no glass containers of any kind and no alcoholic beverages will be permitted. The restriction regarding alcohol has been enacted in the interest of patron safety and in an attempt to make sure that people drink responsibly. All coolers will be subject to search by NYRA security. No coolers of any kind will be permitted in the buildings, including all seating areas, or on the apron of the track. Fans with coolers should enter the track at either the paddock or west end admission gates. Coolers will not be allowed through the clubhouse gate.
There will be many ways to wager on Belmont Stakes Day at Belmont Park, including Win, Place, Show, Exactas and Trifectas on every race, eight Pick 3s, seven Daily Doubles, two Quinellas, three Superfectas and the Grand Slam wager. A $1 Million Guaranteed Pick 6 Pool begins on Race 6. The $1 Million Guaranteed Pick 4 begins on Race 8.
If you cannot make it to Belmont Park, the festivities will be broadcast throughout the day. ESPN will broadcast from noon to 5 p.m. EDT. NBC will broadcast from 5 to 7 p.m. EDT (All times subject to change.)
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Lawmakers sit by as offshore sites poach gamblers and take profitsout of the country
Posted on Thursday, May 18th, 2006
May 16, 2006.
DAVE PERKINS TORONTO STAR
Woodbine turns 50 years of age this year, looking brighter and more inviting, if less populated, than ever. The proprietors of horse racing, both thoroughbred and harness, have seen their product both struggle and flourish over these past five decades. They have presented numerous vivid moments in Canadian sporting history and they’ve seen the game come to life, at least financially, in recent years on the shoulders of slot machines.
But it’s safe to say the Woodbine Entertainment Group, which runs both equine shows, has never confronted a threat to its continued existence quite like the one it is facing now. It’s the Internet, more precisely offshore gambling websites that are poaching away the big bettors - the whales, in the jargon - with such trinkets as Porsche Boxsters, while fostering the spread of underage gambling. Meanwhile, our governments both allow the practice to flourish, which sends hundreds of millions of gambling dollars out of Canada permanently, and leave the racetracks virtually defenceless in what Woodbine’s head man, David Willmot, calls "a commercial Wild West."
"We’re a victim of a government that won’t enforce the laws on the books, yet won’t allow us to compete,” said Willmot, CEO of the Woodbine Entertainment Group, the crew once known as the Ontario Jockey Club that thought, by importing slot machines to the racetracks, it could revitalize the long, honoured and honourable game of horse racing. It mostly worked that way, too, and horse-race wagering peaked in 2002. Then Internet gambling sites began courting the lifeblood of the game - the bettor - by offering incentives and cash rebates the tracks simply can’t match. Willmot said he estimates WEG outlets have lost $100 million in action alone each of the past three years, lost dollars not replaced by increases in other revenue streams. More than 100 online sites take action on Woodbine races without authorization, operating in countries outside the scope of Canadian law.
"We finally get our act together as an industry, begin marketing racing, fix up the plants, improve our customer service and then we lose control of (betting revenues),” Willmot said. "And because the government has yet to come to terms with the new world order of the Internet, billions of unregulated and untaxed dollars are being pulled out of indigenous businesses across North America.”
Here’s what happens: Racetracks conduct parimutuels betting on the races. Most tracks, at least in North America and some overseas, are linked in what is called simulcasting; you can go to Woodbine and bet races in Hong Kong, Los Angeles or Florida, etc., and vice-versa. The betting money goes into the common pool and a percentage is withheld by the track, which puts up the purses for races, waters the flowers, heats the building, pays taxes and usually makes a small profit. Depending on the racing jurisdiction and type of wager (win-place-show, exacta, trifecta, etc.) the amount changes. It ranges from 15 per cent to nearly 30 per cent and averages about 20 per cent. The other 80 per cent is returned to the winning bettors.
Internet bookmakers have no comparable costs to racetracks. They have software to buy and chipheads to run it and a few agents to handle the phone calls, but no purses, taxes, flowers, etc. They usually operate in the Caribbean, Central America or the Channel Islands and have varying levels of regulation. Some of them pay a 5 per cent fee to participate in the simulcast system.
With low overhead, they make enormous profits, simply on the difference between the 5 per cent and the 20 per cent. They can afford to lure bettors with cash rebates - a professional at WEG tracks, speaking without identification, says it is 6 or 7 per cent on every dollar wagered. A man who puts $1 million through a system in a year, which is something like $20,000 a week, well within reach of any professional gambler, starts with a "profit” of $60,000 or $70,000. Tax-free, if the finance minister is listening.
"We have lost almost all of our large bettors to the Internet,” Willmot said. "We have a few left, but only a few. I know for a fact (one of the Internet companies) has agents throughout racetracks across North America, poaching customers. One of ours was offered a Porsche Boxster just to bet with them.”
"You can do better than a Porsche Boxster,” said the gambler, who added that some online bookmakers impose limits on the amount of money won on individual races. They include $25,000 (U.S.) for races at The Meadowlands in New Jersey and $5,000 (U.S.) for races at Woodbine. Many professional gamblers have numerous online accounts, to spread the action around and beat the limits.
Online bookmakers who pay the 5 per cent fee are called "rebaters” and Willmot said it is racing’s own fault that it allowed them into the game in the first place.
"Certain racetracks thought it was new money, that they would be getting 5 per cent where before they got zero. They didn’t realize that the rebaters would circle back in front of them and take away their own customers,” he said. "The bookmaker who buys the signal for 5 per cent gets access to the parimutuels pools. He pays track odds and keeps the difference in percentage, whatever it is. No wonder he can pay rebates and still make a lot of money. And he takes no risk.”
The bookmakers also have the option of what Willmot calls "booking the dumb money and laying off the smart money.” In other words, if a sharp professional gambler likes a horse seriously, they take his action and then bet it back into the pools legally, thereby lowering the odds on the horse and transferring all risk. If it’s a big-time loser throwing money around, the `maker can book the bet.
Two years ago, WEG began its own Internet and telephone betting, a system called Horse Player Interactive, although it can’t match the rebates offered elsewhere. This year, the service has been expanded at Woodbine, offering free wireless Internet connections so that on-track customers can bet into their account off their BlackBerries or cell phones. WEG can monitor the wireless access and if someone is logging on to an offshore betting account, they can be shut down.
Willmot also said Woodbine looked into setting up its own offshore company, registered in the Channel Islands, but was told it would contravene federal gambling laws.
"It isn’t only us feeling this,” Willmot said. "Las Vegas casinos are beginning to have the same frustrations on sports betting, poker and table games. You can play any game, for money, at home. You don’t have to travel.
"The only solution is to legalize it, regulate it and tax it. There’s just no other way around it, `’ Willmot said. "You legalize it and you can at least control it. You can begin stopping the underage gambling by playing hardball with the credit-card companies. Right now, everyone recognizes the number of underage kids playing poker on the Internet is right out of control. My son’s at university (and knows someone) who got $40,000 in debt just from playing online poker.
"These companies are just rubbing our government’s noses in it, with their advertising. It’s like they’re just daring anyone to do anything about them and our governments don’t seem to have either the will or the way. In the U.S., at least they have the will to do it. In Canada, we don’t even have that.”
U.S. lawmakers have been more aggressive in fighting Internet gambling and have at least pressured some credit-card companies, including Visa and American Express, to prohibit customers from using the cards to authorize start-up money at some Internet betting sites. In Canada, the issue is more complicated. Ontario’s official policy is that it is not involved in Internet gambling, although both Ontario and federal politicians held a closed-door meeting a couple of weeks ago to discuss the ever-growing issue. The federal government has shown no interest in prosecuting even those who advertise Internet gambling. An Indian reserve in Quebec has been openly running illegal gambling, including Internet sites, but the feds, because of past tensions, show no sign of interfering. How can Ottawa enact changes in the Criminal Code when it refuses to enforce the ones it has now?
Unlike years past, where racing got itself into most of its own trouble, this has nothing to do with hubris or missed marketing opportunities. Woodbine and other tracks are presenting themselves better. This year, Woodbine will suffer the short-term loss in betting while it installs a new $10 million Polytrack surface, one bettors love for its consistency and one that is less demanding on thoroughbreds and cuts catastrophic equine injuries by up to 90 per cent. Gamblers love the surface and will bet more, the theory goes.
Too much of any increase, though, will leave the country, never to return, because the cork is out of the Internet gambling bottle and won’t ever go back in. Racing, with centuries of history, won’t have much of a future if this process, with our lawmakers’ tacit approval, continues to accelerate.
Free Woodbine horse racing tips, picks & odds. Bet on Woodbine horse racing - bonus and rebates.
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Barbaro Leads 2006 Preakness Stakes Entries
Posted on Thursday, May 18th, 2006
Unbeaten horse and Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was made an even-money favorite for Saturday’s 2006 Preakness Stakes after drawing post no. 6 in the nine-horse field.
Read full story: "Barbaro Leads 2006 Preakness Stakes Entries"...
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Baffert Entries Won’t Run In Preakness
Posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2006
Trainer Bob Baffert won’t run Bob and John or Point Determined in next weekend’s Preakness Stakes, keeping Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro from a rematch with two of his Derby rivals.
Bob and John, who was 17th in the Derby, was the only one under consideration for the second leg of the Triple Crown, Baffert said Saturday. Point Determined finished ninth in the Derby.
He said the two colts will be shipped from Kentucky’s Churchill Downs back to California to prepare for the Belmont Stakes on June 10 in New York.
Horses confirmed for May 20’s Preakness at Pimlico are Barbaro, Brother Derek (fourth in the Derby), Sweetnorthernsaint (seventh), Like Now, Bernardini and Hemingway’s Key.
All HorseRacing Has Released Odds for 2006 Preakness Stakes.
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Black Eyed Susan Stakes Draws Field of Eight
Posted on Monday, May 15th, 2006
The 1 1/8-mile Pimlico Special 2006 Black Eyed Susan Stakes for 3-year-old fillies, drew a balanced field of eight. She’s An Eleven is among the likely favorites for Friday’s $250,000 Woodford Reserve Black-Eyed Susan Stakes (gr. II) at Pimlico on Friday.
Read full story: "Black Eyed Susan Stakes Draws Field of Eight"...
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Lawyer Ron Will Miss Preakness
Posted on Friday, May 12th, 2006
Arkansas Derby winner and 12th finisher in the recently concluded Kentucky Derby, Lawyer Ron, won’t run in the Preakness after all due to his injury.
The colt who won six in a row running in the Derby will undergo surgery on Friday to remove a small chip from his right hind ankle.
Trainer Bob Holthus had hoped to run Lawyer Ron in the second leg of the Triple Crown on Saturday, but the decision was made Thursday to have the chip removed at Lexington’s Rood & Riddle equine clinic.
"He’ll be out approximately 30 to 40 days before he can return to training," Holthus said. "If he had been a cheap horse, you probably would have not thought anything about it. You’d have just gone on. But, after all, he’s run one start in each of the last 10 months."
A majority interest in Lawyer Ron was sold two days before the Derby by the estate of James Hines Jr. to Audrey Haisfield’s Stonewall Stallions. Holthus said the new group owns 80 percent of the Lawyer Ron.
The 131st running of the Preakness Stakes will happen on May 20 at the Pimlico Race Course. Officials are expecting seven to eight field of contenders.
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