Jockey Club Gold Cup win sends Curlin to Breeders' Cup

Horseracing Betting Lines

09/30/2007 - Elmont, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Preakness Stakes winner Curlin overtook Lawyer Ron in deep stretch to win Sunday's $750,000 Jockey Club Gold Cup at Belmont Park. The victory for the three-year-old gives him automatic entry into the $5 million Breeders' Cup Classic at Monmouth Park on Saturday, October 27.

Curlin, ridden by Robby Albarado, was taking on older horses for the first time. Lawyer Ron had already made his way into the Breeders' Cup Classic with his Whitney Handicap victory this summer at Saratoga.

The pace in the 1 1/4 mile Gold Cup was set by long-shot Brother Bobby with Lawyer Ron running second followed by Political Force and Curlin in the seven horse field.

Brother Bobby, with Stewart Elliott riding, led the field up the backstretch and into the far turn. Around the turn for home Lawyer Ron and jockey John Velazquez assumed the lead with Curlin gaining on the outside.

At the top of the stretch Lawyer Ron had a short lead over Curlin as the two put away any challengers. With less than a 100 yards to run Curlin passed Lawyer Ron to record his first win since the Preakness.

Curlin, trained by Steve Asmussen, posted a neck victory over Lawyer Ron followed by Political Force, Sun King, Brother Bobby, Indy Wind and Malibu Moonshine.

The time for the Jockey Club Gold Cup was 2:01.20 on a fast track.

Curlin recorded his second richest win on Sunday. The victory was worth $450,000, second to the $600,000 Preakness win. The colt has won five of eight starts, all this year, for $2.4 million.

"Once you're around a horse like this you gotta be careful not to compare everyone to him because you'll definitely be disappointed most of the time," said assistant trainer Scott Blasi. "He's a special horse. He accomplished a lot a very short period of time over the spring."

Curlin was coming off a disappointing third the Haskell Invitational at Monmouth Park. Before that he was second as the favorite to Rags to Riches the Belmont Stakes.

"His Haskell was disappointing," Blasi said. "I don't think there's something you can really put your finger on, but the Belmont Stakes was a tough race on him."

Jockey Robby Albarado recorded his second Gold Cup win. He was aboard Mineshaft to capture the 2003 edition.

Curlin paid $6.20, $3.10 and $2.40. Lawyer Ron returned $2.40 and $2.10, and Political Force paid $2.70 to show.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.

“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.

“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.

Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.

Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.

The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.

A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game

Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)

The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.

Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.

For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.

Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."

“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”

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