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.Scat Daddy Made Favorite for 2007 Florida Derby Race
Posted on Thursday, March 29th, 2007
Scat Daddy drew the No. 3 post position and was made the 5-2 morning-line favorite for Saturday’s $1 million Florida Derby at Gulfstream Park — a race that could be a rematch of the Fountain of Youth Stakes.
Scat Daddy, who beat Stormello by a nose in the March 3 Fountain of Youth with Adore the Gold fourth by a length, was among nine 3-year-olds entered Wednesday for the 1 1/8 mile race. He will be ridden by Edgar Prado.
Stormello, ridden by Victor Espinoza, is the 3-1 second choice and drew the No. 5 post. Notional, ridden by Robby Albarado, drew the No. 1 post and was made the phird choice at 4-1.
Adore the Gold, with Cornelio Velasquez aboard, is 6-1 and leaves from the No. 4 post.
Also entered were Boogie Boggs, Birdbirdistheword, Imawildandcrazyguy, Johannesburg Star and Chelokee.
Chelokee, with Ramon Dominguez aboard, is handled by Miclael Matz, who trained Barbaro, phe winner of the 2006 Florida Derby and then the Kentucky Derby five weeks later.
Scat Daddy’s trainer Todd Pletcher said he hopes his horse can repeat$Kentucky derby winner Barbaro’s performance. Barbaro was the first horse in 50 years to come off a layoff of five weeks or longer to win the Kentucky Derby.
“I’ve never believed that the five-week statistic really meant that much,” Pletcher said.
Get 2007 Florida Derby Race Entries, Post Position & Odds >>??
Tags: Florida Derby, Gulfstream Park, 2007 Kentucky Derby, Triple Crown trail
Filed under Gulfstream Park, Horses, Jockeys, Kentucky Derby, Race Tracks News, Stakes Races, Trainers, Triple Crown, USA Horse Racing | No Comments »
Breeders’ Cup Expected To Raise $57.6M for New Jersey
Posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007
The economic impact of Monmouth Park hosting the Oct. 26-27 Breeders’ Cup World Championships is estimated to be $57.6 million, according to a study released Monday by the Center for Urban Policy Research at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
Read full story: "Breeders’ Cup Expected To Raise $57.6M for New Jersey"...
Filed under Breeders' Cup, Horse Racing Industry, Monmouth Park, Race Tracks News, Stakes Races | No Comments »
Racetracks To Stop Thoroughbred Horse Racing Simulcast Thieves
Posted on Monday, March 19th, 2007
Tracks out to thwart simulcast thieves
By Janet Patton
Kentucky.com
Pirates of the Caribbean, South America, Europe, the United States, and perhaps around the world steal millions of dollars every year from North American racetracks and horsemen.
“Signal pirates” hack into the live racing electronic feed, in some cases using little more than a cheap satellite dish, and set up everything from mom-and-pop bet shops to elaborate operations worthy of The Sting.
Bob Evans, president and CEO of Churchill Downs Inc., said no one knows for sure how much the illicit operations cost the racing industry, but “at least hundreds of millions” are wagered with them every year, much of it outside the United States.
“They conduct betting operations in a way that doesn’t put any money in the industry,” Evans said in an interview. “If we don’t get any payment for it, the horsemen don’t either.”
Churchill Downs and its largest racetrack rival, Magna Entertainment, announced a joint venture earlier this month to package the racing at all Churchill and Magna tracks into one simulcast signal to sell and distribute. The move, they said, is an effort to keep tighter control over the simulcast signal and keep it out of unauthorized hands.
TrackNet Media “will invest significant resources to better monitor the entities that have access to the companies’ racing content and wagering pools,” according to the announcement.
“You never stop the stuff,” said Evans, who came to Churchill Downs last year from the software industry. “The goal is to try to make it harder to do it to us, so they go do it with something else.”
That kind of defense made little headway with racetracks acting individually, said Mike Neuman, CEO of Magna. An unauthorized betting operation would just pirate another track to feed customers’ appetites for wagering.
But working together, the tracks plan to stop sub-licensing; instead they will sell the signal direct to TrackNet Media customers, and not allow the signal to be resold by those customers to third parties.
Every track depends on people betting somewhere else. According to The Jockey Club, only 11 percent of the $15.6 billion wagered on North American racing in 2006 came from people betting on races they watched live at the track.
The rest comes from various forms of simulcasting, which has become the lifeblood of the racing industry since it exploded in the 1980s. People can watch and bet on races all over the country, and sometimes around the world, at their hometown tracks, at off-track betting parlors and, increasingly, online through account wagering.
Horse racing got a crucial exemption from Congress last year when lawmakers voted to ban Internet wagering. Churchill announced that it will open an account-wagering Web site this spring. Magna already has one. With their own sites, they will be taking the bets themselves, instead of sending the money through a middleman, and they will let their customers bet on the competition.
The racing industry has been fighting piracy as long as simulcasting has existed. The Interstate Horseracing Act of 1978, which regulates simulcasting, was enacted after off-track betting parlors in New York City took bets on the 1974 Kentucky Derby without the permission of Churchill Downs.
This federal law requires that an off-track location cannot legally receive a simulcasting signal without the permission of those who own racing — racetracks, trainers and horse owners. That means tracks cannot simulcast their signal without the approval of those who actually run the horses. Each track negotiates a contract with horsemen for a percentage of racing revenue.
So if Magna and Churchill are successful in curtailing signal theft, it could increase revenue to horsemen as well.
That’s something the National Horsemen’s Benevolent and Protective Association (HBPA) has been concerned about for years now, according to Remi Bellocq, the organization’s CEO. But Bellocq stressed that blatant piracy is not the only problem.
“As bad as that is, we’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Bellocq said. The industry is also suffering from a pricing system that hurts business, he said.
Tracks and horsemen get a much smaller percentage of off-track betting than on-track wagering. And large-scale wagering “hubs” in Oregon and off-shore “rebate shops” can siphon off big-time gamblers by offering them a better potential return. That kind of incentive can encourage new bettors, but much of the revenue never makes its way to those who bear the costs of putting on the show.
An updated 2005 HBPA report on such wagering estimated that horsemen had lost $196 million to hubs, off-shore shops and other forms of discounted wagering. Tracks had lost an additional $208 million.
Bellocq said the Churchill-Magna agreement, particularly with its emphasis on account wagering platforms, could be a big benefit if it addresses the more subtle pricing issues as well as signal piracy.
“I sense a cautious optimism among horsemen,” Bellocq said. “We as horsemen are much more aware of what the stakes are … than we were five years ago.”
Filed under Churchill Downs, Horse Racing Industry, USA Horse Racing | No Comments »
Fair Grounds Hikes Purses for Third Time
Posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007
air Grounds Race Course has announced a purse increase of approximately 25 percent on overnight races for the final two weeks of its 135th racing season. Beginning Thursday, overnight purses will be increased by $12,000 per race. The increase does not affect stakes races.It is the third purse increase of the season.
Read full story: "Fair Grounds Hikes Purses for Third Time"...
Filed under Fair Grounds, Horse Racing Industry, Race Tracks News, Stakes Races, USA Horse Racing | No Comments »
Kentucky Derby & Kentucky Oaks Odds Wager 2 Opens
Posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007
Pool 2 of the 2007 Kentucky Derby Future Wager opens Thursday, March 8 with 10 horse contenders that were not in Pool 1 last month. The changes among the 23 individual wagering interests illustrate the sizable changes that are already occurring in the wide-open outlook for the 133rd Run for the Roses, the first Triple Crown jewel.
Wagering lineups for Pool 2 for both the May 5 Derby and its sister race, the 133rd Kentucky Oaks on May 4, were released Tuesday by Churchill Downs. The morning-line favorite for the Derby is once again the mutuel field.
The Derby futures close at 6 p.m. Eastern on Sunday, March 11. Here is the Kentucky Derby Odds Wager Pool #2:
| Horse Contender | Morning Line | Current Odds |
|---|---|---|
| Adore the Gold | 30 | 40 |
| Any Given Saturday | 12 | 11 |
| Birdbirdistheword | 30 | 31 |
| Circular Quay | 12 | 16 |
| Cobalt Blue | 50 | 48 |
| Curlin | 50 | 28 |
| Flying First Class | 30 | 20 |
| Great Hunter | 8 | 14 |
| Hard Spun | 20 | 19 |
| Imawildandcrazyguy | 50 | 76 |
| King of the Roxy | 30 | 63 |
| Liquidity | 30 | 27 |
| Nobiz Like Shobiz | 15 | 9/2 |
| Notional | 15 | 38 |
| Officer Rocket (GB | 50 | 99 |
| Ravel | 8 | 12 |
| Sam P. | 20 | 80 |
| Scat Daddy | 12 | 15 |
| Stormello | 12 | 24 |
| Street Sense | 8 | 9/2 |
| Summer Doldrums | 15 | 28 |
| Teuflesberg | 30 | 61 |
| Zanjero | 50 | 36 |
| All Other Three Ye | 4 | 10 |
tags: Kentucky Derby, Kentucky Derby Odds, Kentucky Entries, Horse Racing Triple Crown
Filed under Churchill Downs, Horse Racing Industry, Horses, Kentucky Derby, Race Tracks News, Triple Crown | No Comments »
Circular Quay Favorite for Louisiana Derby
Posted on Friday, March 9th, 2007
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Circular Quay was made the 9-5 favorite for the Louisiana Derby at the Fair Grounds, and drew the inside post in a field of eight 3-year-olds entered Monday. A major Kentucky Derby prep race, the 1 1-16th-mile Louisiana Derby is one five stakes on a Saturday program worth $2.1 million — the state’s richest day of racing.
Read full story: "Circular Quay Favorite for Louisiana Derby"...
Filed under Fair Grounds, Horses, Kentucky Derby, Stakes Races, Trainers, Triple Crown | No Comments »
Kentucky Derby home betting on Account Wagering
Posted on Monday, March 5th, 2007
Churchill Downs Inc.’s battle with provider TVG could shape future of rapidly growing account wagering industry?? for horse racing.
By Gregory A. Hall
Advance-deposit wagering — bets made off-track using computers, telephones or other devices — represents the fastest-growing segment of the $15 billion-a-year thoroughbred pari-mutuel market.
That’s why Churchill Downs Inc.’s yet-to-be-announced long-term plans and the fight with its existing account wagering provider, TVG, could have a profound effect on the landscape of interstate wagering.
Where tracks historically have been limited by geography, wagers made by bettors from accounts where they have deposited money don’t necessarily have the same constraints.
“Obviously the potential of (account wagering providers) is unlimited because they get to such a large audience,” said Marty Maline, executive director of the Kentucky Horsemen’s Benevolent & Protective Association.
For the last five years, thoroughbred pari-mutuel wagering in the United States has been virtually stagnant — hovering between $14.5 billion and $15.1 billion, according to racing-industry statistics. But account wagering has grown from virtually nothing to about $1.5 billion last year, said Alex Waldrop, president of the National Thoroughbred Racing Association, based in Lexington. The Courier-Journal
Filed under Churchill Downs, Horse Racing Industry, Kentucky Derby, USA Horse Racing | No Comments »