Former two-year-old champ retired
Horseracing Betting Lines
09/07/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Every year following the running of the Breeders' Cup Juvenile the winner of the race is automatically declared the early favorite for the next year's Kentucky Derby. Street Sense is the only thoroughbred to win both races.
I bring this up because it has been announced that 2008 Juvenile winner and two-year-old champion male Midshipman has been retired from competition. Who knew he was still in training?
Midshipman never made it to the Run for the Roses in 2009. That race is best known as being won by 50-1 longshot Mine That Bird who was last to Midshipman in the 2008 Juvenile.
"Midshipman defeated the best of his generation," Oliver Tait, Darley Stable's Chief Operating Officer, said, "while proving himself on both dirt and synthetic surfaces. We couldn't be more excited to have a champion two-year- old with his kind of looks and pedigree joining our roster in 2011."
As a two-year-old Midshipman won three of four starts, with a second, for $1,380,200. Along with the Juvenile he won the Del Mar Futurity in 2008 and was second to Street Hero in the Norfolk Stakes at Santa Anita.
Midshipman's biggest race in 2009 was the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Santa Anita. He was beaten less than a length to finish third to Furthest Land.
The colt finishes his racing career with five wins in eight starts for more than $1.5 million.
The downfall for Midshipman might have been his time in Dubai after his Juvenile victory. He didn't have a start during his time overseas and never recaptured whatever magic he may have had.
This year as a four-year-old the colt won his lone start, an allowance race in Dubai.
Horses come and go. Some capture the imagination like Secretariat or more recently Smarty Jones. Others are merely good horses who either don't develop or aren't allowed to progress.
Smarty Jones was honored on Labor Day at Parx Racing, formerly Philadelphia Park. The track has a new stakes race named for the 2004 Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes winner and a statue of him was unveiled.
Parx Racing honored Smarty Jones because he is the only Kentucky Derby winner who was ever based at the suburban Philadelphia track. His owners and trainer brought him back home before the 2004 Belmont Stakes. Even though that race didn't end with the Pennsylvania-bred sweeping the Triple Crown, he became an instant legend around Philadelphia.
Midshipman has been retired. Best of luck in his new career. Who knew he was still in training?
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SPORTS BETTING: NFL Football Sportsbook Betting
NFL owners, already life's biggest winners, want to try their luck with the lottery.
That was the news out of their meetings last week, where team bosses voted unanimously to allow stamping state and local lottery tickets with franchise logos, if, ahem, any governments wanted to do a deal.
A shocker: Within days the Pats announced they'd be sponsoring the Massachusetts state lottery, the Skins said they'd slap their sticker on Virginia scratch-offs and the Ravens admitted they were talking to Maryland lottery bosses. In all likelihood, it won't be long before every team is a presenting sponsor of scratch-offs or just plain old pick fives. "The change in policy was approved 32-0," said NFL spokesman Greg Aiello. "So you can expect to see more deals soon."
It's a branding opportunity too big for the owners to ignore, and one a couple of dozen baseball franchises have enjoyed for years. The fact the NFL has been slower to act than those slack-brained Seligites is indicative of its complicated relationship with all forms of gambling. Consider this: Last Thursday, as the Pats and the Redskins finalized their new lottery deals, a lawyer representing the NFL argued before Delaware's Supreme Court that the state's newly signed sports betting law should be repealed.
The NFL betting is the face of opposition to sports gambling . And as much as it would like to share that responsibility with other leagues, that's not going to happen as long as more than 40% of all money legally wagered on games is bet on football. That's why the Brewers can do a multi-million dollar deal with a local casino, or the Celtics can make their own pact with the Mass lottery, and the response is, "Sweet, let's play." But when the NFL does it the stakes are higher, and everyone from NPR's Frank Deford to the Associated Press to the guys blogging at Deadspin will line up to play gotcha.
So I asked Aiello, who surely knew there'd be piling on, how the league can rail against being bait for sports bettors, then allow its franchises to be just that for lotteries, the most insidious and addictive form of gambling around. He emailed me this response: "We are not moral crusaders. NFL personnel are permitted to engage in legal forms of gambling, except for betting on NFL games. We are making a distinction here between the spread of gambling on the outcome of our games and supporting state lottery scratch-off games, that have nothing to do with the outcome of our games."
Here's where I should rip him. But, the thing is, he's right. Not to get Obama on you, but this is a complicated, nuanced issue. As much as lotteries are considered a tax on the poor, the NFL isn't a socially obligated government program -- it's just a business. Scratch-off's help the bottom line, sports betting doesn't. Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors … But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal.
Now, it's okay to call the league hypocritical when it releases injury reports, which players have told me only helps bettors. And it's okay to mutter something obscene when the league pretends gambling doesn't help drive TV ratings and fan interest and put money in owners' pockets. But when it supports other forms of gaming? Big Deal. The Bears should put an orange "C" on every deck of cards dealt at Harrah's in Joliet; the Eagles should slap their logo on roulette wheels at the Borgata in Atlantic City; the Dolphins should hold training camp at the El San Juan in Puerto Rico.
Seriously.
The NFL's problem, when it comes to the gambling world, isn't hypocrisy, it's worse: The bosses lack vision. That's why the league is picking unwinnable fights in Delaware and taking pot shots from critics after making smart sponsorship deals. Roger Goodell and his gang are acting and thinking locally rather than globally, which is rare for them, especially compared to their professional (and amateur) counterparts.
The NBA held its All Star game in Las Vegas and David Stern's kingdom didn't crumble (although the town did bring plenty of players to their knees.) I'd say it's 6 to 5 and pick 'em that Lebron will make a road swing through Sin City before his career is over.
Even the NCAA College Football Betting is more progressive on this issue than the NFL. Several years ago Rachel Newman Baker, college sports' gambling czar, opened a dialogue with Vegas bookmakers to learn about how they do business. She's visited Nevada sports books, studied their operations and listened to how they regulate action. Now she knows she can expect a call from bookmakers, who lose money when sports are fixed, if they think something sketchy is going on in NCAA games. She's not in favor of sports betting, but, as she once told me, "I know it's not going away, either."
The NFL can't seem to accept that. And until it can find peace with the idea, it'll get flack, even when it's right.
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Kurt Warner to start, Matt Leinart to watch
Despite the debate that's swirling , Kurt Warner will remain the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green said today. The Arizona Cardinals are the +7 point underdog at online sportsbook MySportsbook.com for this Sunday's game.
Green's comment came in a statement released by the team following an ESPN report that Green decided that rookie Matt Leinart would replace Warner as starter for Sunday's game at Atlanta.
"Generally talking about the starting lineup is not something we do," Green told the AP. "However, given the speculation that was out there we want to make it clear. We're disappointed after last week, but we still expect to be a playoff football team and we fully expect Kurt Warner to be the quarterback that leads us. That has not changed."
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