Awesome Act gets Gotham Stakes victory

Horseracing Betting Lines

03/06/2010 - Ozone Park, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Post-time favorite Awesome Act, ridden by Julien Leparoux, scampered away down the stretch to capture Saturday's $250,000 Gotham Stakes at Aqueduct. The 1 1/16-mile Gotham is the final local prep before the $750,000 Wood Memorial on April 3.

Sent off as the 5-2 favorite, Awesome Act had been the 7-2 morning-line favorite as well in the 10-horse field. The chestnut colt was making his first start since finishing fourth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf last November.

Trained by Jeremy Noseda, the three-year-old was racing just off the pace that was being set by Wow Wow Wow. Running in second up the backstretch was Whirlaway Stakes winner Peppi Knows with Three Day Rush racing in third.

The field began to bunch up around the final turn and there were six horses across the track coming into the stretch. Awesome Act was on the outside coming off the turn and quickly took the lead at the top of the stretch.

Awesome Act was able to maintain his lead down the stretch even as Yawanna Twist, the 7-2 second choice, made a late run. Awesome Act posted a 1 1/4- length win over Yawanna Twist with Nacho Friend finishing third and Turf Melody getting fourth.

Rounding out the order of finish was Shrimp Dancer, Peppi Knows, I've Got the Fever, Wow Wow Wow, Three Day Rush and Afleet Again.

The time for the Gotham was 1:43.85 on a fast track.

Awesome Act is co-owned by Mrs. Susan Roy and Vinery Stables. The Gotham win was worth $150,000 as the colt recorded his first stakes victory. He has won two of seven career starts for $221,691.

Saturday's race was the first on dirt for Awesome Act. He had started five times on turf and once on an artificial surface. He lost the Juvenile Turf to Pounced by 1 1/4-lengths following a late rally.

Awesome Act returned $7.70, $5.10 and $3.80. Yawanna Twist paid $5.90 and $4.70, and Nacho Friend paid $6.80 to show.

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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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