May 03 - The Kentucky Derby post positions have now been determined and the morning line odds prepared by the Churchill Downs handicapper Mike Battaglia are out. Curlin is a slight betting favorite at 7-2 with Street Sense next at 4-1.
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The morning line odds bear little resemblance to the actual odds available at Bodog's Racebook where Curlin is actually 9-5 in the betting. Street Sense is 9-2 at the online racebook.
Battaglia feels that it is very, very close between the two horses (his words not ours) but the betting public clearly disagrees and we predict that Curlin will be somewhere around 7-5 come post time on Saturday.
Curlin has to overcome historical precedents, which will scare off superstitious types who are easily swayed by factoids: No horse that was unraced as a two-year-old has won the Kentucky Derby for over 100 years. No horse that has only had three lifetime starts has won the race since Regret did it more than 90 years ago. Favorites for the race have performed extremely poorly in the past 15 years. And on and on.
The bottom line is that Curlin appears to be the best American horse of his generation and if he gets the trip he needs he'll win the race. That's a big if because there are 20 runners and one needs a lot of good fortune to run an unscathed race.
If Curlin fails any one of a number of horses could win and many of us who bet on the favorite way back when he was 16-1 will have to live in our motor vehicles, but if he should win the bubbly is on us!
Wager on the Kentucky Derby and you'll receive $100 in free casino chips, only at Bodog!
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