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08/19/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Since it doesn't appear that Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta will race against each other before the Breeders' Cup in November, Saturday's meeting between leading three-year-old fillies Devil May Care and Blind Luck will have to do.
Devil May Care and Blind Luck are the featured fillies in Saturday's $500,000 Alabama Stakes at Saratoga Race Course. Each is ranked in the NTRA Thoroughbred Poll, eighth and seventh, respectively. Devil May Care has been made the 7-5 morning-line favorite with Blind Luck next at 8-5.
The two will take on four other three-year-old ladies.
Devil May Care, trained by Todd Pletcher, has the home field advantage for the event. She won last month's Coaching Club American Oaks at Saratoga by four lengths.
"She's held her form since the Coaching Club, which I don't think was a particularly taxing race for her, and so far everything is going to plan," said Pletcher. "I have a tremendous amount of respect for Blind Luck, and I'm looking forward to the race. You're putting the two most accomplished fillies on the racetrack and that's what everyone wants to see."
Devil May Care also won the Mother Goose Stakes at Belmont Park in June. Back in May the filly was part the of the 20 horse field in the Kentucky Derby. She finished 10th, right in the middle behind Super Saver, another Pletcher trainee.
Blind Luck comes into the Alabama from her home base at Santa Anita Park. Trained by Jerry Hollendorfer, the filly won the Kentucky Oaks by a nose the day before the Run for the Roses. There is no word as to whether Devil May Care and Blind Luck met while both were stabled at Churchill Downs.
"I don't think this is to the level that Rachel and Zenyatta were at," Hollendorfer said about Saturday's meeting, "but, you know, I think this is a race that the fans want to see.
"I'm not looking at it as a two-horse race. And I don't believe that from what I read Todd Pletcher said, he's not either. And I've already run against another good horse (Havre de Grace) and barely beat her by Tony Dutrow. So, you know, I don't really look at it as a showdown. Everybody that's going in there thinks that they have a chance. And so we have to beat everybody, not just one horse."
Hollendorfer, who is a co-owner of Blind Luck, has sent his filly out 12 times in her short career. She's come back a winner eight times with two seconds and two more third-place finishes, earning better than $1.5 million.
Her most recent race was the Delaware Oaks at Delaware Park. Sent off as the 1-5 favorite, she needed every inch of the 1 1/16-miles to post a nose victory over Havre de Grace.
"Well, I think that my horse can run on any surface," Hollendorfer noted. "And, you know, she's run on the off track and on the synthetic and on dirt, so the only thing we haven't tried her on is turf.
"I think all of these fillies have to prove that they can run a mile and quarter and I'm going to throw out Devil May Care's race in the Kentucky Derby, that mile and quarter. That track wasn't in the greatest shape that day. I think you could throw that race out, so all of these are going to have to prove that they can do the mile and quarter."
Brothers Tony and Rick Dutrow will each be represented in the Alabama.
Tony has Delaware Oaks runner-up Havre de Grace and Rick sends out Black-Eyed Susan winner Acting Happy.
"We are over the moon about Havre de Grace," said trainer Tony Dutrow. "She's improved in every one of her starts. The Delaware Oaks, the first graded stakes of her career, I'm very, very proud of what she did. Now, she's going to go 1 1/4-miles against the very best of her generation.
"It's a mountain to climb, and we're going into it with our eyes wide open, but we're feeling very good about her and are going to give it a try. I think she'll run great, and I hope she runs great enough."
Acting Happy finished third to Devil May Care in the Coaching Club American Oaks.
"She's got to come forward, that's for sure, because (Devil May Care is) a very nice filly and so is Blind Luck," said Rick, the older of the Dutrow siblings. "So she definitely has her work cut out for her."
Tizahit and Connie and Michael completes the field for the 1 1/4-mile Alabama.
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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.
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.
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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