Eskendereya romps in Wood Memorial

Horseracing Betting Lines

04/03/2010 - Ozone Park, NY (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Odds-on favorite Eskendereya ran away down the stretch Saturday to capture the $750,000 Wood Memorial at Aqueduct. The victory puts the colt among the favorites for this year's Kentucky Derby.

Eskendereya, who won the Fountain of Youth Stakes by more than eight-lengths, used a stalking ride by John Velazquez to take the lead on the final turn in the Wood and post a double-digit win over five rivals.

Setting the pace in the 1 1/8-mile race was Most Happy Fella with Jackson Bend in second and the 1-2 favorite in third. Farther back was Gotham Stakes winner Awesome Act, about four-lengths behind the leader.

On the turn for home Most Happy Fella had a short lead on the inside as Eskendereya moved to the outside to draw even. Jackson Bend was running third between the top two horses.

Eskendereya took the lead entering the stretch and proceeded to widen his advantage. The chestnut colt continued to increase his lead down the stretch to eventually hit the wire with a 9 3/4-length victory.

Jackson Bend held on for second followed by Awesome Act, Schoolyard Dreams, Carnivore and Most Happy Fella.

The time for the Wood Memorial was 1:49.97 on a fast track.

Owned by Zayat Stables, Eskendereya is the top three-year-old in trainer Todd Pletcher's stable. The colt notched his third straight win with the Wood victory which was worth $450,000. He now has won four of six starts with career earnings of $725,700.

"He has all the tools that you would like to see," Pletcher noted, "and you know the things that's exciting about him is the one thing we've been very confident all along is that he wants to run the distances of you know the classic races. I don't see a mile and a quarter or even a mile and a half in this for him, he just has tremendous natural stamina. You know he's physically a strong horse, he holds up to his races well, he eats well. You know, you can sometimes, if you get a couple of races into a campaign, you'll start to see horses start to lose a little condition, a little weight and he's thriving on it. So yeah, I think you know from all those standpoints he's got all the right tools."

After finishing second in his debut last year Eskendereya won the Pilgrim Stakes at Belmont Park in October and was ninth in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile at Santa Anita.

Eskendereya returned $3.00, $2.30 and $2.10. Jackson Bend paid $3.90 and $2.60, and Awesome Act paid $2.20 to show.

The last Wood Memorial winner to capture the Kentucky Derby was Fusaichi Pegasus in 2000.

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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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