Honors Saturday for Rapid Redux and friends
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02/14/2012 - Laurel, MD (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Record holder Rapid Redux and his connections will receive another honor on Saturday at one of their favorite tracks. The Maryland Jockey Club will recognize the gelding as well as his owner Robert Cole along with trainer David Wells and jockey J.D. Acosta at Laurel Park.
Rapid Redux has won 22 straight starts including a perfect 19-for-19 in 2011. The six-year-old won as the 3-10 favorite on December 13 at Laurel Park for his 19th victory of last year, matching the modern mark for a single year held by Citation and early 20th-century horse Roseben. Citation equaled Roseben's record in 1948, the same year he won the Triple Crown.
"We were able to run seven times in Maryland during the streak, including Timonium, and it is good it worked out that way because I am a Maryland guy," Cole said. "When the country was watching as we closed in on the record he was running here. Even though he trains at Penn National I think people think of him as a Maryland horse. David and I feel that way, too."
Rapid Redux received the Special Eclipse Award at last month's ceremony in Beverly Hills. The honor was for extraordinary service, individual achievements in, or contributions to the sport of thoroughbred racing.
"It was fun going to California and talking to all the big stars in racing," "It was a little scary being on the stage. The lights were so bright you couldn't see the crowd but I felt comfortable. I wanted the racing world to know how much I appreciated David's training and how proud I was of the horse.
"He is doing fine on David's farm and we are hoping to extend the streak. If he was a normal horse he would be coming back to race for sure but we don't want to bring him back if he is not the same horse. That is the predicament we have and we don't know where we'll be in May or June when he is ready to go again. We are uncommitted at this time. He has given us everything he's got and you don't want to go to the well one too many times."
The chestnut gelding also was recognized with the 2011 Secretariat 'Vox Populi,' or "Voice of the People," Award. The award is given to a horse "whose popularity and racing excellence best resounded with the American public and gained recognition for thoroughbred racing."
The gelding began the win streak on December 2, 2010 at Penn National. He broke the record for consecutive wins last November at Mountaineer Park with his 20th straight victory.
Rapid Redux has career earnings of $361,609 with 28 wins in 42 starts. Since being claimed by Cole in October, 2010 at Penn National, the gelding has won 23 of 24 races for $266,074.
"I talked to Penny Chenery (Secretariat's owner) on the phone for 10 or 15 minutes," Cole said. "I got to tell her the story of how I won a three-way shake the night I took him. The night before I claimed a horse at Charles Town for $25,000 and he never ended up winning a race. That's how crazy this story is. You spend $25,000 on a horse who can't win then $6,000 the next night on a horse who wins 22 in a row. He certainly had upside when we claimed him because of the conditions he was eligible for and his early speed, which gave him potential to make us money. Wells transferred him into an unforgettable, priceless horse with a spot in history."
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2007 online football betting Preview
My fellow Americans, as tempting as it may be to don the coat and HD-ready tie in order to deliver this State of the Game address before the cameras, I know better. As Brad Paisley sings on his latest album, "I'm so much cooler online."
The ideas for this annual essay to kick off the MySportsbook.com college football betting preview flowed like frat-house beer, which is to say they were cheap and spilled all over the floor. The 2007 season will be better than 2007, if only because there will be more of it. A year ago, the NCAA Football Rules Committee made two rule changes in the interest of speeding up the game. These changes went over like Kobe burgers at a vegan banquet.
To its credit, the rules committee rectified its mistakes. This season the clock once again will start when a kickoff is received, rather than when it is kicked, and the clock will not start so quickly on a change of possession.
However, kickoffs have been moved back five yards, to the 30, which will force more returns. (Thus forcing the clock to run. Clever, huh?) Special teams might decide a lot of games, because coaching strategy will come straight out of another new Paisley lyric (almost), I'd like to check you for kicks.
Paisley sings with a twang, which is why he's appropriate for this college football season. The sun coming up over the 2007 college football betting lines season rises from the south. It's a Southern football world. As the Southeastern Conference begins its 75th year, the power shift is noticeable.
Eight-figure budgets, glamorous settings -- and that's just for the head coaches. The SEC has four coaches who have won national championships -- the greatest aggregation of coaching know-how since Eddie Robinson dined alone.
Steve Spurrier, Phil Fulmer, Nick Saban and Urban Meyer have given lie to the idea that a conference championship game is too daunting a hurdle on the road to No. 1. In six of the past 10 seasons, the national champions played and won a conference championship game -- three of the six (Tennessee, 1998; LSU, 2003; Florida, 2007) from the SEC.
2007 College Football Betting Preview
There will be more of the same this season, if the preseason prognostications are correct. Six SEC teams are in the preseason coaches' poll, more than from any other conference. Only one conference has talent so deep that a team with 15 returning starters, including the best quarterback in the league, from an eight-win season is considered an afterthought. That may speak more to Kentucky's losing legacy than to the wisdom of the predictions, but there you have it. And seriously, keep an eye on Wildcats QB Andre' Woodson.
The reach of the South extends all the way to No. 1. Take a look at the team that is a consensus pick to win the national championship. The quarterback is from Shreveport. The best wide receiver is from Nashville. The top recruit is from New Orleans.
So what's the campus doing in Los Angeles? Hey, it is the University of Southern California.
USC lost two Pacific-10 Conference games a year ago, the first time that had happened in five seasons, and university officials withstood the urge to form blue-ribbon panels to unearth the cause of such a disaster. Instead, the Trojans gathered themselves and routed Michigan, 32-18, in the Rose Bowl.
USC's losses at Oregon State and at UCLA last year should have given pause to those who question the Pac-10's football prowess (such as, without naming names, L.M. from Baton Rouge). The league only got deeper this season; Dennis Erickson is taking over an Arizona State team that never quite got out of its own way under his predecessor, Dirk Koetter.
Erickson will resume his quest to become the first coach to win a national championship at two schools. Both he and Spurrier, now in his third season at South Carolina, returned to college football at schools with lower profiles than where they won their titles.
That isn't the case for the third coach looking for the national championship double. You may have missed this, but NASA reported the astronauts on the space shuttle last spring made contact with what can only be described as beings from another galaxy.
The leader of the aliens said, "We come in peace," followed by, "So how do you think Nick Saban will do at Alabama?"
The public is reacting to the new Crimson Tide coach as if he is the Barry Bonds of college football -- beloved at home for what his fans believe he is going to do, hated on the road for his intimidating attitude and for what his detractors believe he did (bend NCAA recruiting rules). I made this comparison from the dais at a charity dinner in Mobile, Ala., last month, and the chill that washed over me didn't come from the air conditioning.
Saban will attempt to prove that he can remake in Tuscaloosa what he built in Baton Rouge, much like another member of the national championship fraternity. Bobby Bowden is attempting to remake at Florida State what he built at, um, Florida State. Bowden rebuilt his offensive staff, bringing in four new coaches led by Saban's former offensive coordinator, Jimbo Fisher, to jump-start an offense that has been dead for a couple of years.
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The Atlantic Coast Conference is expected to show new signs of life, too. That is said with no disrespect toward last season's champion, Wake Forest, which provided one of the best story lines of 2007. The Demon Deacons begin this season in their customary position, overshadowed by the Virginia Techs, Miamis and Florida States.
It's not that Wake will find it difficult to duplicate its success in 2007 as much as the feeling that success engendered. Surprising success is the narcotic of sport. It never feels quite so euphoric the next time. Big East commissioner Mike Tranghese has figured this out. He refers to 2007, when a league looked down upon by fans and foes alike took three undefeated teams into November, as "Cinderella."
The fairy tale may be over, but the Big East has four genuine Heisman Trophy candidates in Louisville quarterback Brian Brohm, West Virginia tailback Steve Slaton and quarterback Pat White, and Rutgers tailback Ray Rice. Rutgers, as did Wake Forest and, of course, Boise State, proved last season that the have-nots in college football occasionally have quite a lot.
The Broncos' rousing 43-42 overtime victory over Oklahoma in the Fiesta Bowl has raised the profile of all schools in conferences that don't get automatic BCS bids. This season, TCU and Hawaii are the preseason favorites to burst through the BCS doors and earn an at-large bid. The Warriors return 14 starters from an 11-3 team, including quarterback Colt Brennan.
Brennan not only broke the single-season record with 58 touchdown passes in 2007, but he also led Division I-A in passing efficiency (186.0). The senior is expected to contend for the Heisman Trophy, and neither his success nor the rise of his team should come as any surprise in the 2007 season.
After all, Hawaii is the southernmost team in the country.
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Kurt Warner to start, Matt Leinart to watch
Despite the debate that's swirling , Kurt Warner will remain the starting quarterback for the Arizona Cardinals, coach Dennis Green said today. The Arizona Cardinals are the +7 point underdog at online sportsbook MySportsbook.com for this Sunday's game.
Green's comment came in a statement released by the team following an ESPN report that Green decided that rookie Matt Leinart would replace Warner as starter for Sunday's game at Atlanta.
"Generally talking about the starting lineup is not something we do," Green told the AP. "However, given the speculation that was out there we want to make it clear. We're disappointed after last week, but we still expect to be a playoff football team and we fully expect Kurt Warner to be the quarterback that leads us. That has not changed."
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