A Little Warm comes up hot in Delaware

Horseracing Betting Lines

06/29/2010 - Stanton, DE (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Three months after finishing second in the Louisiana Derby, A Little Warm got back into action Tuesday afternoon at Delaware Park. The three-year-old colt returned to racing in a 1 1/16-mile allowance race as the 3-2 morning-line favorite.

Ridden by John Velazquez, A Little Warm ran second behind Miner's Reserve on Delaware's main track. Miner's Reserve, trained by Nick Zito and ridden by Jeremy Rose, took the four horse field up the backstretch and around the final turn.

Sent off as the 3-5 favorite, A Little Warm finally drew even with the 6-5 second choice at the top of the stretch. The favorite notched his second win of the year and the third of his career with a 2 1/4-length victory over Miner's Reserve. A Little Warm stopped the timer at 1:43.60.

There was no show wagering due to the small field. A Little Warm returned $3.20 and $2.10, Miner's Reserve paid $2.60.

"We did not feel our horse was 100 percent going into the race today," said trainer Tony Dutrow, "and for him to give us a performance like that and to fight as hard he did to beat a really nice horse, I think we have to be really happy and looking forward to his future."

Owned by Edward Evans, A Little Warm was originally considered for the Preakness Stakes on May 15. However, he was withdrawn from consideration about a week before the Triple Crown race following an unsatisfactory endoscopic examination.

A Little Warm began 2010 by winning the $100,000 Spectacular Bid Stakes on January 9 at Gulfstream Park. He then came up second to D'Funnybone in the $150,000 Hutcheson Stakes at the South Florida track.

Tuesday's win put A Little Warm's career earnings at $308,880 in eight starts.

Dutrow has the colt nominated to the Barbaro Stakes for three-year-olds at Delaware Park on July 10. However, it appears A Little Warm will rejoin the top echelon of three-year-olds this summer.

"I think right now, Mr. Evans is looking at the Jim Dandy (July 31) at Saratoga for his next start," noted Dutrow.

The Jim Dandy is the traditional prep race for the Travers at Saratoga at the end of August. One day after the Jim Dandy is the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park.

In 2009, Rachel Alexandra won the Haskell with Summer Bird in second. Summer Bird came back to win the Travers and eventually be voted the year's champion three-year-old colt.

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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.

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