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RACING RETURNS TO SANDY DOWNS JUNE 10^th!

Thoroughbreds and Quarter horses in Action

Horse racing returns to Idaho Falls on June 10th with live Thoroughbred and Quarter horse racing at Sandy Downs.  Twelve days of racing are scheduled for the 2011 season with full wagering at the country style race park.  Horses from the Intermountain Region, Northwest, and the Midwest are expected to compete. 

Jim Bernard, President and General Manager of Ida Racing, operators of the Sandy Downs race meet said this year’s season is just the tip of the iceberg for a renaissance for Idaho racing.  He said, “There is a new era unfolding for Idaho racing and we are so pleased to grow the horse racing industry for our horsemen, local farms and great fans.  This year brings together the fun at Sandy Downs, our new Turf Club at the Fort Hall Casino and the rapid growth of our IdaBet.com online wagering service.  Together, these innovations form the cornerstone of a bright future for the important racing industry and its contributions to the state.

The 2011 race dates in will be June 10, 11, 17, 24 and 25 as well as July 8, 9, 15, 22, 23, 29 & 30.  Post time for the first race is 6:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.  In addition to the live action, fans can watch and wager on races from across the country including famed race courses like Saratoga.

Admission daily is $6 which includes a grandstand seat (first come, first serve), official program, tip sheet and a discount coupon when available. Children 10 and under are free with an adult.  Sandy Downs also offers festival style seating on the picnic lawn.  Fans can choose from an array of concessions and a country-style barbecue.

A series of fun promotions and live music will be offered throughout the...

As we know, all of our Idabet players are the most astute gamblers in the country.  In fact, I bet none of you lose (isn’t that what all handicappers say) ha ha…But seriously, coming up on June 10, I really think a rare opportunity is to happen for our players.  Idabet.com’s parent operates the Sandy Downs live racing meet in Idaho Falls featuring thoroughbred and quarter horse racing.

This is not quite Saratoga or Santa Anita, but it can be a player’s paradise.  In the past this fair style meet has been limited to the fans on track in beautiful Idaho Falls.  However, now, Idabet.com players can bet it with your account.  Like most fair style meets, most of the bettors are small time and novices and overlays can reign supreme.

Yes, YOU, the astute gambler can have a field day as among a select few to catch some real values in these races.  Idabet.com is offering LIVE STREAMING of all of our races and why not have some fun with our action.

For opening weekend, we offering you a FREE $2 BET (excludes show wagering) when you wager at least $10 on any Sandy Downs race.  Just enter promo code SDY10 on the Fund Page at Idabet.com.  We will also have available the Mad Capper Tip Sheet for Idabet players every race day for FREE to give you a local perspective of the races.  The Idabet.com player who bets the most on the meet will also get a $50 BONUS added to their account.

Watch this column and your E-Mail for other special offers during the Sandy Downs race meet.  Hey, this is really the way racing was in the past…This is going to be fun!  Trust me…Keep watching here as we get closer to opening day!

PREAKNESS UPDATE   Reprinted from the Batlimore Sun

Of the past 20 Derby winners, just seven followed it up by winning the Preakness. Some of the contenders quickly faded away, never to be heard from again. For example, last year’s Derby winner, Super Saver, went into the Preakness as a 19-10 favorite. He finished eighth and ran just one more time before he was retired. In retrospect, the post-Derby talk of Super Saver’s Triple Crown bid seems a bit absurd. He was a mud horse who ran well on a muddy day at Churchill.
Does that mean we might one day view Animal Kingdom as a turf horse who just happened to win a Derby that was run like a turf race? The six furlong split — as Sports Illustrated pointed out after the race — was the slowest Derby pace since 1947.

Not necessarily, said trainer Todd Pletcher, who trained Super Saver. Pletcher gave an interesting answer when he was asked by a reporter if he was surprised by Animal Kingdom’s victory, considering the chestnut colt was viewed primarily as a turf horse prior to the win.

“Maybe he’s a dirt horse that had never run on dirt before,” Pletcher said.

Barry Irwin, a former turf rider who heads the Team Valor partnership that owns Animal Kingdom, said he thinks too many people get hung up on whether or not a horse has run on a certain surface or not. Animal Kingdom is the first Derby winner who had never previously run on dirt, a fact most of the media and people who went to the betting windows couldn’t look past.

“This getting hung up on ‘No turf horses have ever done this, no synthetic horses have ever done this,’ all that to me is nonsense,” Irwin said. “The only thing that counts is what has this horse done and how is he trained and what do the connections think of him. With this horse, it’s nothing but positives.”

Motion said he feels similarly. A good horse...

Almost all of the stories this week leading up to the Preakness which you can bet on Idabet.com has been about the state of racing in Maryland.  Before we go there, it appears most of the top handicappers are showing their respect to Animal Kingdom in the race tomorrow.  I’ll take a look at the race and offer my selections later today.

Since I grew up in Maryland and worked for many years at the Maryland tracks including as a kid at Bowie, Timonium, Marlboro, Fair Hill and of course Laurel and Pimlico as well as Freestate Raceway, I feel I can make some interesting comments about Maryland’s serious problems.

Today the two Maryland tracks are faced with short fields, depressed purses and antiquated facilities.  Unfortunately, the problems are deeply rooted and go back to the 1960’s as the heyday of racing came to an end.  Until then, Maryland was a benefactor of an East Coast circuit of racing that began in Florida in the winter and moved northward as the weather warmed.  The top horses, trainers and stables followed this circuit which brought fans in daily via trains and busses from Richmond to the south to New York to the north.  Meantime, the winter featured a meet at Bowie which ushered in off season racing for the mid Atlantic hardcore.

As the only game in town for legalized racing, racetracks were notorious for sticking it to the fans in those days.  You paid as many as three parking fees (general, preferred and valet), followed by admission, program, Racing Form or Telegraph, a Stable Boy tip sheet of course, a hot dog and a beer before you probably even made your first bet.  By the time the first race was over, you might be out $30 and now have to sit around and wait a half hour for the next race.  Oh yeah, in those days, your only exotic was the double so, it was just WPS from that point on.

Things began to change in the...

Northern New Jersey racetracks are no longer under state control as private operators will now run the Meadowlands and Monmouth Park.  You can bet both Jersey tracks with Idabet.com.  Morris Bailey, the new owner of the Resorts Casino in Atlantic City has taken over Monmouth Park which ran an incredibly successful meet last year when it cut racing days and more than doubled daily purses.  However, most of the purse money came from a major state subsidy from the casinos that is now being phased out.  Though scheduled for 141 days of racing on the Jersey shore, Bailey hopes to cut the meet to 71 which would allow for higher purses and better runners.

Jeff Gural, owner of two standardbred tracks in New Yorks is now driving the sulky at the Meadowlands, the premier harness track in the country.  Months of negotiations and contract revisions put the future of this track on hold until now.  Gural is off to a slow start as only 86 horses entered his first day of operations.  The Meadowlands which used to run both flats and pacers will now strictly be for standardbreds.

The five year agreements end three decades of operations by the New Jersey Sports Authority.  Once the bread and butter of the sports complex, the tracks have seen steady declines in business from growing casino competition and the unchecked battle for race days and horses throughout the Northeast and Mid Atlantic region.

SARATOGA TO GET NBC, CABLE LIVE COVERAGE THIS SUMMER

In one of the biggest television moves in years for horse racing, NBC and it’s cable partner VERSUS will broadcast 8 Saturdays of live racing from Saratoga beginning July 23.  The one hour shows will feature some of the biggest stakes of the year including the Travers otherwise known as the Mid Summer Derby.  Outside of the Triple Crown which NBC now broadcasts, it has been years since some form of regular racing has been telecast on broadcast TV and a few years since...

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all of our Idabet.com Moms/Players…like “student athletes” we know are mom’s are great mother’s first and then good Idabet.com players.

In this era of 20-horse Derby fields, I’ve never believe that the race really determines the top 3-year-old.  So many things can happen in such a race that you really don’t get a true trip.  Add the fact, outside of the Derby there isn’t really any other races with such depth that both horse and jockey can’t even get enough experience to maneuver such a crowd.  Of course, there’s also the old adages of many colts are still way too young and haven’t developed enough enough this early in their careers.

Nonetheless, Animal Kingdom got a great ride yesterday that was trouble free.  It’s not to say other horses could have had better races if not for a huge field.  Add this to the fact many colts have not fully developed yet and early May is still a tough time to determine our next superstars.

What is fun today is to look back at the various public handicappers yesterday to see their picks.  Congrats go out to Joe Draper of the New York Times who picked Animal Kingdom as his Derby pick.  Also to Robby Rodgriguez of the Sacramento Bee who picked the winner as his third choice and if you had boxed his 3 choices you would have hit the big exacta.

It’s back to business and you can BET THE PREAKNESS right here on Idabet.com as well as the Belmont Stakes.  Again, we apologize for the decisions by Churchill Downs and hopefully this racing industry of ours one day will get their act together.