Drosselmeyer: Not the best horse last Saturday

Horseracing Betting Lines

06/07/2010 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Drosselmeyer won the 142nd Belmont Stakes but the most promising colt that ran at Belmont Park was not even entered in a stakes race.

The fourth race on the card gave horseplayers a glimpse of future greatness as Trappe Shot rolled to a four-length victory over Tahitian Warrior in his first trip over seven furlongs.

I've been touting this three-year-old for months now and this last performance was flat-out incredible. Not only did he get the distance in 1:22 flat, he ran three-fifths of a second faster than five-time stakes winner D'Funnybone, who won the Woody Stephens Stakes two races later in 1:22 3/5.

Furthermore, Bribon, last year's Met Mile champion, took the six-furlong True North Handicap (the eighth race on the card) in 1:09 3/5, just one tick faster than Trappe Shot, who had to run another furlong.

The win was Trappe Shot's third straight this year and his first in open company. After finishing fifth in his debut last July, the son of Tapit returned to the races in late February in a maiden special weight race for Florida breds at Gulfstream Park. He won that six-furlong event by 10 1/4- lengths in 1:09 2/5.

Trainer Kiaran McLaughlin moved him up a half-furlong to 6 1/2 for his next race, also against state-breds. The chestnut colt came out running once again blowing out an entry-level allowance field by 12 3/4-lengths in 1:16 1/5.

Trappe Shot was expected to make his stakes debut in the Withers at Aqueduct on April 24, but a slight injury held him back. McLaughlin decided not to rush his three-year-old star and waited more than a month to race him once again. That day finally came this past Saturday moving upward against older horses for the very first time.

Trapped on the rail for most of the first five furlongs, his natural speed allowed him to keep up with the fast pace. Then jockey Alan Garcia moved him into the three-path at the top of the stretch sitting in the third spot.

Second choice Tahitian Warrior took over the lead from pacesetter Ricoriatoa, but in a matter of seconds, Trappe Shot ran right by him en route to another easy victory. In three races this year, Garcia has yet to even take out the whip!

McLaughlin has already indicated where he'll send his prized colt next. It's off to Monmouth Park in the Long Branch Stakes on July 10. That will be a very important race around two turns at 1 1/16-miles. If he handles the distance, look for him to move forward in either the Jim Dandy or Haskell, with the Travers Stakes being the primary goal.

If Trappe Shot doesn't pass the distance test, expect him to revert back to sprinting with the Amsterdam and King's Bishop Stakes at Saratoga the primary objectives.

There should be no reason two turns will have any adverse effects on this future star. His father Tapit has already sired Careless Jewel, who won last year's 1 1/4-mile Alabama Stakes. Tapit's dam, Tap Your Heels, is a half- sister to both Rubiano and Hong Kong Jade. Rubiano sired Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown, while Hong Kong Jade produced Hong Kong Squall, the dam of Summer Bird, winner of last year's Belmont and Travers Stakes as well as the Jockey Club Gold Cup.

Trappe Shot's female family is also loaded with stayers. His second dam, Impish, produced Lay Down, who finished first in the 10-furlong Excelsior Handicap back in 1990. His damsire, Private Account, winner of the 1 1/4-mile Gulfstream Park Handicap 10 years earlier, sired future champions Personal Ensign and Inside Information.

Private Account's half-sister Dance Number produced Rhythm, who won the 1990 Travers, and Rhythm's full-sister. Get Lucky. is the dam of Supercharger, who produced this year's Kentucky Derby winner, Super Saver.

SECOND SLOWEST BELMONT IN 40 YEARS

Someone had to win the Belmont Stakes. It turned out to be Drosselmeyer, who prevailed by three-quarters of a length over Fly Down with First Dude finishing third. The 13-1 shot came into the third leg of the Triple Crown on a three race losing streak, including a six-length loss to the aforementioned Fly Down in the Dwyer Stakes.

With a change of jockeys from Kent Desormeaux to Mike Smith, Drosselmeyer was able to turn the tables on his rival producing a $144.50 exacta. It was Smith's first ever Belmont victory, giving him his own personal Triple Crown with previous wins in the Kentucky Derby aboard Giacomo in 2005 and the Preakness on Prairie Bayou all the way back in 1993. Drosselmeyer's win also gave WinStar Farm its second Triple Crown win this year, as the owners also had Super Saver in the Kentucky Derby.

Still, the race was a pathetic display as the final time for the 1 1/2-mile event was a pedestrian 2:31 2/5. Not since Thunder Gulch won the 1995 Belmont Stakes has there been a slower time in the Test of Champions. The next most listless race came in 1970 when High Echelon prevailed over a sloppy track in 2:34, and the slowest final time before that was all the way back in 1944!

The dawdling early pace (24, 49, 1:14 1/5) allowed First Dude to hang on for third, edging out Game On Dude, who faltered through the stretch to finish fourth. The $2 superfecta returned a solid $10,658 compared to $766 for the $2 trifecta.

Ice Box finished a dismal ninth as the 8-5 favorite, but he never had a chance due to the deliberate early fractions.

To show what kind of year it has been, six different horses finished first and second in all three Triple Crown races marking just the second time that has happened since 1962.

Eighteen years ago, Lil E. Tee and Casual Lies ran one-two in the Kentucky Derby. Pine Bluff and Alydeed crossed the wire in that order in the Preakness, and A.P. Indy and My Memoirs repeated it in the Belmont.

This year Super Saver and Ice Box completed the Derby exacta, while Lookin At Lucky and First Dude ran first and second in the middle leg, and Drosselmeyer and Fly Down finished it off in the Belmont.

Let's hope Trappe Shot becomes the next superstar of the sport because the rest of this three-year-old division is extremely weak.

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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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