Street Sense versus Hard Spun in Kentucky Cup Classic

Horseracing Betting Lines

09/26/2007 - Florence, KY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense and Derby runner-up Hard Spun top a field of five for Saturday's $350,000 Kentucky Cup Classic at Turfway Park. The 1 1/8 mile race will be the first start for Street Sense on an all-weather surface.

Street Sense, owned by James Tafel, is the 3-5 morning-line favorite and will be ridden by regular rider Calvin Borel from post three. Both he and Hard Spun are facing older horses for the first time.

Street Sense won both starts at Saratoga this summer, capturing the Jim Dandy and Travers Stakes. Trained by Carl Nafzger, the colt has won six of 11 career starts for more than $4 million.

"He's doing great, and he's ready to run," said Nafzger. "If he wasn't doing great, he wouldn't be running anywhere. I'm not doing anything. The horse is doing it all. I'm just trying not to mess him up, just stay out of his way and let Calvin and him do their thing. Street Sense has two assets. One, he's completely relaxed during the race. He'll wait for Calvin. And second, when you ask him he's got a heck of a turn of foot. You can push that button the first quarter of a mile if you want and he'll go. He and Calvin have a real rapport."

Street Sense would become the first horse to win the Breeders' Cup Juvenile, Kentucky Derby and Breeders' Cup Classic.

Hard Spun has been made the 8-5 second choice for the Kentucky Cup Classic. Owned by Rick Porter, the colt will break from inside post with Mario Pino in the saddle.

Trainer Larry Jones sent out Hard Spun on the Travers undercard to win the King's Bishop Stakes at Saratoga. He was third in the Preakness and fourth in the Belmont Stakes, he then finished second to Any Given Saturday in the Haskell at Monmouth Park. He has earned $1.4 million in 11 lifetime start with six wins.

This is a return engagement for Hard Spun at Turfway Park. In his final start before the Run for the Roses the colt captured the Lane's End Stakes.

"We probably couldn't have imagined what has happened since we were last at Turfway," said Jones. "This is a great thing for the track to have the top two horses from the Derby. It won't be an easy spot for any of the other horses that join the field."

The 4-1 third choice is Stream Cat, who is partially owned by former Duke basketball star Bobby Hurley. The four-year-old gelding will be ridden by Julien Leparoux from post four.

Trained by Patrick Biancone, Stream Cat is coming off a fourth place finish on the turf in the Arlington Million. He has a win on the all-weather track at Keeneland earlier this year and has earnings of $423,810 in 13 career starts.

Completing the field are Cat Shaker and Muqbil.

The Kentucky Cup Classic has a scheduled post-time of 5:42 p.m. (et).

Wwwtreasuredome Horseracing Betting News

<< Vick tests positive for marijuana
Atlanta, GA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick is facing more legal trouble after testing positive for marijuana. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Vick tested positive for a urine sample submi

<< Bears officially name Griese starter against Detroit
Lake Forest, IL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Chicago Bears head coach Lovie Smith officially named Brian Griese his starting quarterback for Sunday's game against the Detroit Lions. Griese, who took the snaps with the first team of

<< BC Lions' Simon highlights CFL players of the week
Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - BC Lions slotback Geroy Simon was named Offensive Player of the Week for the CFL's Week 13. Simon had eight receptions for 151 yards and one touchdown as the Lions held off the Saskatchewan Roughrider

<< Marion wants out of Phoenix
Phoenix, AZ (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - According to a published report, Phoenix Suns forward Shawn Marion feels it is time to move on and for the franchise to trade him. According to the Arizona Republic, Marion is unhappy that the team h

<< Reds' Dunn has season-ending surgery
Cincinnati, OH (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Cincinnati Reds outfielder Adam Dunn underwent season-ending arthroscopic surgery to clean out his right knee and to repair a torn meniscus on Wednesday morning. The one-hour procedure was perfor

Umpire Winters suspended by MLB >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Umpire Mike Winters has been suspended by Major League Baseball for the rest of the regular season for his involvement in a heated dispute with San Diego Padres outfielder Milton Bradley on Sunday. Brad

Westbrook's big week earns him NFC honors >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Philadelphia Eagles running back Brian Westbrook's three touchdown performance against the Detroit Lions last Sunday helped earn him NFC Offensive Player of the Week honors for week three. In additio

Brady among those to earn AFC weekly honors >>
New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, linebacker Keith Bulluck of the Tennessee Titans and Baltimore Ravens wide receiver/kick returner Yamon Figurs were named the AFC Players of the Week fo

Koubek, Rochus win at rain-plagued Mumbai event >>
Mumbai, India (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sixth-seeded Austrian Stefan Koubek and eighth-seeded Belgian Olivier beat out the rain on Wednesday and posted first- round wins at the $416,000 Kingfisher Airlines Tennis Open. Koubek clobbered Chil

NASCAR announces 2008 Sprint Cup Schedule >>
Daytona Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 2008 NASCAR Sprint Cup (formerly Nextel Cup) scheduled was released on Wednesday. The 36-race schedule is similar to last year's schedule with no new venues and little change in the order o

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.”

To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.