Quality Road headlines Met Mile

Horseracing Betting Lines

05/28/2010 - Elmont, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Horse of the Year candidate Quality Road heads a field of eight older horses for Monday's $500,000 Metropolitan Handicap (Met Mile) at Belmont Park. The Met Mile has a scheduled post-time of 5:50 p.m. (et).

Quality Road, second in the current NTRA Thoroughbred Poll, has drawn post seven with John Velazquez again in the saddle. The four-year-old colt is owned by Edward Evans and trained by Todd Pletcher.

Perfect in two starts this year, Quality Road has not run since winning the Donn Handicap in February at Gulfstream Park. In January, he captured the Hal's Hope Stakes at the south Florida track.

"You want to make sure they are ready to run," Pletcher said. "This is a tough spot, but we think we know him well enough and know that he's run well fresh enough times that we have an idea of what he needs to be ready."

In 2009 as a three-year-old, Quality Road was on his way to the Kentucky Derby until an injury put him off the trail. He won the Fountain of Youth Stakes and Florida Derby at Gulfstream.

He returned with a victory in the Amsterdam Stakes at Saratoga and was third to Summer Bird in the Travers. The colt ended 2009 with a second-place finish behind Summer Bird in the Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. In his career Quality Road has won six of nine starts for more than $1.3 million.

Westchester Handicap winner Le Grand Cru will start from the outside post next to Quality Road with Cornelio Velasquez riding. The five-year-old is trained by Allen Jerkens for Judson Streicher.

Le Grand Cru has just the one win this year in five starts and finished sixth to Quality Road in the Hal's Hope. In his career the five-year-old has earned $433,578 with five wins in 18 starts.

"It looks like it's going to be a really tough race," noted assistant trainer Fernando Abreu, "but our horse is doing well."

Trainer Derek Ryan will send Musket Man over from Monmouth Park for the Met Mile. The four-year-old colt, owned by Eric Fein, will be ridden by Ramon Dominguez from post three.

Musket Man is coming off a third-place finish in the Churchill Downs on Kentucky Derby Day. He won the Super Stakes at Tampa Bay Downs in February and was second to Warrior's Reward in the Carter Hadicap at Aqueduct in April.

With wins in the Illinois and Tampa Bay Derbies last year, Musket Man has earnings of just over $1 million with six wins in 11 career starts.

Here is the complete field for the Met Mile in post position order: Convocation, Kent Desormeaux; Tizway, Rajiv Maragh; Musket Man, Ramon Dominguez; Warrior's Reward, Calvin Borel; Kensei, Edgar Prado; You and I Forever, Javier Castellano; Quality Road, John Velazquez and Le Grand Cru, Cornelio Velasquez.

Wwwcare2 Horseracing Betting News

<< Dolphins' Merling on field after assault arrest
DAVIE, Fla. (AP) -Defensive end Phillip Merling was in practice with the Miami Dolphins on Friday, less than 24 hours being freed from jail following a charge of aggravated battery against a pregnant woman.Merling did not speak with reporters.He's t

<< Tigers reinstate Guillen
Detroit, MI (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Detroit Tigers on Friday reinstated outfielder Carlos Guillen from the 15-day disabled list. Guillen, who has not played since April 22 due to a left hamstring strain, hit .333 with three doubles,

<< Penguins, Capitals to face off in 2011 Winter Classic
Chicago, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman announced during his state of the league address on Friday that the Pittsburgh Penguins and Washington Capitals will be the participants in the 2011 W

<< D.C. hopes to build on Milan win against Chivas
Washington, D.C. (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - D.C. United has scored four times in nine MLS games this year, but may have finally found its scoring touch this week in a friendly against AC Milan. Luciano Emilio, Chris Pontius and Danny Allsopp scored

<< France chosen to host Euro 2016
Geneva, Switzerland (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - France beat out both Italy and Turkey to be named as hosts of Euro 2016 it was announced on Friday. The competition will be the first European championship to feature a 24-team format, which is an i

Struggling New York, New England clash at Gillette >>
Foxborough, MA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Red Bull New York won five of its first six games this season, but has lost three straight in MLS to spoil its good start. New York has won outside MLS since its last league win May 1, beating Italian powe

Texans sign McManis >>
HOUSTON (AP) -The Houston Texans have signed fifth-round draft pick Sherrick McManis.McManis, a cornerback, was selected with the 144th overall pick in this year's draft from Northwestern.He had 37 tackles and a team-high five interceptions last sea

AP Source: West, Guillen and Buehrle fined by MLB >>
NEW YORK (AP) - Umpire Joe West, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and pitcher Mark Buehrle have been fined by Major League Baseball for their recent balk flap.A person familiar with the decision tells The Associated Press that there weren't any suspe

Pirates P Morton goes to DL with shoulder fatigue >>
Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Pittsburgh Pirates placed pitcher Charlie Morton on the 15-day disabled list Friday with right shoulder fatigue. The move comes one day after Morton gave up seven runs (five earned) in two innings agai

NL Central: Injuries to test Cardinals' pitching depth >>
(Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The St. Louis Cardinals' starting pitching was the envy of the National League Central heading into this season, a formidable five-man staff anchored by arguably baseball's best one-two punch in co-aces Chris Carpenter and Ad

SPORTS BETTING - Tennis is an underrated and under-utilized bettors' sport.

Ten years ago, at just about this time, I called Alan Boston in Vegas and left him a voicemail that went something like this (abridged version): "Hey Alan, Chad Millman from ESPN The Magazine calling. I want to do a book about wise guys, you in?"

A couple weeks later I got a message back (abridged version): "I don't know, maybe," Boston said. "Call me and we'll talk about it. But not later today. I got $1,000 on Andre Agassi to win the French Open at 40-1, and he's in the finals."

Here's what happened next (abridged version): Agassi won his tourney. Boston won his $40,000. I wrote sportsbook.

In the ten years since, how much has been wagered on the big-time tennis events? Put it this way: The Nevada Gaming Commission doesn't even track the number year by year because it's so small.

"Tennis makes up about one-tenth of one percent of our take," says Lucky's bookmaking boss Jimmy Vaccaro. "The last big golf major we probably had $100,000 worth of bets. In tennis, we might have written two big tickets."

Tennis' lack of popularity amongst the American bettoratti is no surprise, really. For starters, the biggest sports betting holidays -- the Super Bowl, the NCAA tourney -- are must see TV. People, at least the degenerates I know, plan vacations around watching those events in Vegas sports books.

But Wimbledon? Doesn't exactly reel in the whales. "Seriously, it's the nuts as an event," says Boston. "But who even knows when it's on?"

Here's another reason that helps explain why golf gets traction, something I call "The Bubbe Theory." My Bubbe is pushing 95 and has cataracts so bad that, to her, even the most crystalline Chicago day is mostly cloudy. But she still listens to the Cubs games, and she still calls me in a fit if she disagrees with something Rick Telander writes in the Chicago Sun Times. She's a sports fan. If she doesn't know you, you're just filling a niche. And niche players, even historically good ones like Roger and Raf, don't drive betting volume. Only the highest profile names attract square money, which inflates wagering totals like a shot of saline to the lips. Bubbe, and the public, loved Agassi, tennis' last cross-the-rubicon, mainstream draw. She also has a crush on Tiger. She's given me standing orders to put a sawbuck on the big cat whenever I walk through a sports book (or mistakenly tap into one via my Internet machine.) That explains why the Masters is getting $100K in action at some books while the four tennis majors might not get that combined this year.

This isn't a case of tennis being a difficult sport to bet. In fact, in Europe, it's probably the second most popular sport for gambling after soccer. Granted, as the WSJ football betting last week and The Mag's Shaun Assael examined in even greater depth last year, that might be because gamblers across the pond see it as an easy game to fix. But it could also be because, over there it holds the kind of sway the big two do over here.

Street corners in Spain are peppered with public courts and kids doing their best Raffy impressions. In some war torn parts of Eastern Europe poverty-stricken kids view tennis as an escape route, like football or basketball here. A couple years ago The Mag's Lindsay Berra wrote a great piece about Belgrade's Jelena Jankovic, Ana Ivanovic and Novak Djokovic. They learned the game as kids while bombs were raining down on their homeland. They practiced in drained swimming pools. Not exactly Nick Bolletierri conditions.

In the United States, casual fans think tennis is played four times a year. But on the tightly packed European continent, national interest in homegrown talent runs deep every weekend. Of the ATP's current top 20 players, only two, tennis betting and James Blake, are American. Fourteen are from Europe, representing six different countries.

No wonder fans from Lisbon to Bhudapest get jacked up for the net game, whether it's Wimbledon or a low-level tourney like the Estoril Open in Portugal (congrats to Spain's Albert Montanes for winning that one, btw). Chances are good that someone representing their flag will not only be playing, but have a shot at winning.

And that's all any bettor can ask for.

To visit this sports book go to MySportsbook.com for all your football betting needs.