Drosselmeyer win voted 2011 Moment of the Year

Horseracing Betting Lines

01/13/2012 - New York, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - For the third straight year, the running of the Breeders' Cup Classic has been voted the National Thoroughbred Racing Association (NTRA) Moment of the Year.

This was the 13th year that horse racing fans have been able to cast votes for the top event in thoroughbred racing.

Of the 12 nominated events from 2011, Drosselmeyer's longshot victory in the $5 million Classic garnered the most votes cast. The four-year-old's win over pacesetter Game On Dude, with Mike Smith riding, received 46 percent of the online ballots.

The winning selection will be honored at the Eclipse Award ceremony Monday, January 16 with the "NTRA Moment of the Year" award.

The previous two winning "Moments" were the thrilling Breeders' Cup Classics involving Zenyatta. She won in 2009 and barely lost to Blame the following year.

Here are the remaining nominated moments with percentages:

- Game on Dude and Chantal Sutherland survive 10 furlongs and a 12-minute stewards' inquiry in capturing the Santa Anita Handicap. (three percent)

- Rosie Napravnik guides Pants on Fire to victory in the Louisiana Derby en route to becoming the first woman to win a Fair Grounds riding title. (one percent)

- Uncle Mo suffers his first defeat, running third behind Toby's Corner in Aqueduct's Wood Memorial. (one percent)

- Animal Kingdom runs down his foes in the Kentucky Derby. (five percent)

- Shackleford overcomes pre-race nervousness to hold off Animal Kingdom in the Preakness. (two percent)

- Blind Luck prevails by a nose over Havre de Grace following a stretch-long duel in the Delaware Handicap. (14 percent)

- Caleb's Posse catches a stubborn Uncle Mo in the King's Bishop Stakes at Saratoga. (two percent)

- Havre de Grace beats the boys in Saratoga's Woodward Stakes. (nine percent)

- Joseph O'Brien, 18, becomes the youngest jockey to win a Breeders' Cup race, piloting St. Nicholas Abbey to victory in the Breeders' Cup Turf for his father, Aidan O'Brien. (six percent)

- Court Vision spoils Goldikova's attempt at a fourth consecutive Breeders' Cup Mile win, upsetting the field at 64-1. (two percent)

- Rapid Redux breaks a North American record by winning his 20th consecutive race. (nine percent)

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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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