Animal Kingdom returns with win at Gulfstream
Horseracing Betting Lines
02/18/2012 - Hallandale Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Eclipse Award winner Animal Kingdom made a successful return to the races on Saturday with a worst-to-first result at Gulfstream Park. The four-year-old was making his first start since last year's Belmont Stakes.
Trained by Graham Motion, Animal Kingdom was the 3-5 post-time favorite in the six-horse field and was ridden by John Velazquez. The chestnut colt, owned by Team Valor, was using the 1 1/16-mile allowance race on the turf as a prep for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 31.
The colt originally was to start in the Tampa Bay Stakes on the grass at Tampa Bay Downs on February 25.
After trailing the field in the early going during the race, Animal Kingdom began to advance from the outside with a half-mile to run. The favorite drew even with the leaders on the final turn and took the lead entering the stretch.
"They went slow enough where he just pulled me into contention all on his own," said Velazquez. "I let him do what he wanted as opposed to wrangling him back behind horses."
Animal Kingdom drove down the stretch to register a two-length victory over 2-1 second choice Monument Hill. Bell by the Ridge was third followed by Royal Hill, Tannersville and Midnight Mischief.
"The second I started kissing at him in the stretch, he picked it right up and took off," Velazquez said. "It was a great feeling today and great to have him back. He felt as good as ever."
The time for the race on a firm turf course was 1:41.72.
"All we were worried about was having him run too big. We didn't want to see a big race and have him leave it on the track. We did not need a big race here. All we wanted was a nice quiet race and we got it," said Barry Irwin, founder and CEO of Team Valor International. "He's much better than he was last year. This race is not going to prove that, but we can tell by the way he trains and the way he looks, he's a much better horse this year."
The 2011 Kentucky Derby winner and champion three-year-old picked up $30,000 with the win and now has earnings of more than $1.96 million. It was his fourth win in eight career starts.
"Obviously, I would have been disappointed if he hadn't won today, when you've have a race that's set up for you. But this was the best thing for us. He still had to go out there and it," Motion said. "He needed a race and still has six weeks to regroup to get him to Dubai in the right way."
Animal Kingdom suffered a hairline fracture during the running of the 2011 Belmont Stakes. Prior to that he was second in the Preakness Stakes in addition to taking the Run for the Roses. In March of last year he captured the Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park.
"This horse has come a long way since October. Nothing was more heartbreaking than to see this horse stuck in a stall a week after the Belmont. He went from being the fittest horse in the country to not being able to get out of his stall. That was tough," said Motion, whose Derby winner underwent surgery to repair a fracture in his left hind leg in June. "To see him today, back to himself, obviously Im elated."
Animal Kingdom returned $3.20, $2.20 and $2.10. Monument Hill paid $2.80 and $2.10, and Bell by the Ridge paid $4.20 to show.
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Sportsbook Betting Lines
Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Why Sports Betting Lines Change
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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