TrackBets International Negotiating Joint Venture
NEW YORK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 07/16/08 -- TrackBets International, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: TRKB) is pleased to announce that it has commenced negotiations to create a joint venture that would enable the Company to distribute an advanced deposit wagering (ADW) Web portal, facilitating wagering on horse races in Brazil and the United States, from residents in each country. If completed, the joint venture would create revenue opportunities from wagering in the U.S. as well as Brazil.
In 2001, ADW became legal in the U.S., allowing participants to deposit funds and later wager via phone, Internet or mobile devices such as cell phones and PDAs, making it easier to place wagers. According to the Oregon Racing Commission, which documents figures on most ADW companies in the U.S., in the first Quarter of 2008, more than $351 million were wagered on horse racing in the U.S. through ADW companies. During the 2006 Kentucky Derby Day, the largest provider of Internet racing content in the U.S. processed nearly $5.6 million in wagers, a 34 percent increase over 2005.
The joint venture would enable TrackBets to distribute the ADW portal via the Internet, enabling residents in Brazil to wager on horse races in the U.S. Residents in the U.S. could also wager on horse races in Brazil, and TrackBets would retain a percentage of the profits generated from both countries.
"Advanced Deposit Wagering is undergoing an incredible growth period, and we intend to create a dynamic experience for racing enthusiasts. The possibilities for viewership and revenue are endless," stated John D. Samuel, CEO and President of TrackBets International, Inc.
Horse race wagering has increased year to year in 11 of the past 15 years. Some of the benefits of ADW include the low cost to betters, the ability to build a fan base via Web sites, an inexpensive means to broadcast races within and outside the U.S., and the ability to add other features such as games, merchandise and wagering on other sports.
TrackBets was recently profiled in "Larry Oakley's Stock Pick" on WallStreetCorner.com, and CEO, John D. Samuel, was interviewed by Mr. Oakley, who was optimistic about the Company's plans for potential revenue in the Brazilian wagering market and beyond.
(c) 2008 StreetInsider
Weekly Horse Racing Column: Trainer McPeek has focus on what's important
Ken McPeek already trains a filly, My Baby Baby, named for his 7-year-old daughter Jennifer Lynne. Now McPeek needs to purchase another yearling and call it Priorities in Order, because the man obviously has both feet firmly planted and knows what's important in life.
Sure, winning a Belmont Stakes and the Florida Derby, to go with more than 80 other stakes victories during a 23-year career, is nice. It puts food on the table and helps pay the bills. It brings fame and notoriety, and everyone enjoys being recognized for a job well done.
But the 45-year-old McPeek, an Arkansas native, has no problem separating the superfluous items in his life from what he truly treasures.
"This is a big, silly game we play," McPeek said while taking a break from preparing My Baby Baby to run in Saturday's $750,000 Grade I American Oaks for 3-year-old fillies at Hollywood Park. "That's really all it is. It's a sport, and yeah we take it seriously, but sometimes we take it too seriously. The truth is, what really matters is family and friends. There's a whole lot more to life than just running horses."
Take it from a man whose wife, Sue, was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer normally found in children called Primitive Neuroectodermal Tumors, or PNET, while pregnant with Jennifer Lynne in 2000. Thankfully, everything turned out well and Sue and Jennifer Lynne are both as healthy as can be today.
But five years later, in April 2005, McPeek's
mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and given less than a year to live. She defied the odds and lived until this past January, when she died at 67, but it was another lesson learned that there are more important things than hay, oats and water.
"All of a sudden perspective hits you upside the head," McPeek said. "We were just kinda catching our breath from (the cancer) and ... here my mother was ill and then I was going to be going off to New York to deal with a string of horses.
"I really didn't have my mind into it."
At that point, McPeek decided to take a year's sabbatical from training. He says his stable got too big and too spread out, and he stepped back for about a year and became a bloodstock agent, picking out such horses as Curlin in 2005 for the original owner, Midnight Cry Stable. He also bought My Baby Baby in the same Fasig-Tipton Kentucky Sale that Big Brown came out of.
"I still think it takes more talent to find a good horse than it does to train it," McPeek said.
But make no mistake, McPeek is adept at both.
He enjoyed his finest year in 2002, when Harlan's Holiday won the Florida Derby and finished seventh as the morning-line favorite for the Kentucky Derby.
After Harlan's Holiday finished fourth in the Preakness, he was transferred by owner Jack Wolf to Todd Pletcher's barn just before the Belmont.
Undeterred, McPeek saddled Sarava, the longest shot on the board at 70-1, to win the final leg of the Triple Crown.
Overall, his stable earned $6,647,289 in 2002, winning 81 races from 469 starters - a success rate of 17 percent. He's faring even better in 2008, winning with 26percent of his 200starters, but the earnings - $1,860,616 - are down because he has downsized his operation.
"I went from a good, solid Midwest horseman that had a good number of horses, and when I had the breakout year, we really got too big," McPeek said. "I had too many horses at too many places. At one point I had 35 in New York, 35 in Chicago, 36 in Churchill, and another 50-plus at Ocala, Fla."
A stable that once included more than 160 horses now numbers a little more than 100 and is centralized in Lexington and Louisville, Ky.
"We do all the training there and then we ship and run," McPeek said. "We have turf to train over, Polytrack and conventional dirt.
"I like it better that I can be at home at night and that I have a real life. There was a period where I was having to fly to New York and stay three and four days, and Chicago, and there's really not much quality of life there."
On Saturday, McPeek's My Baby Baby, owned by Sue McPeek in partnership with three others, will meet 11 other fillies in the seventh running of the American Oaks at 1-1/4 miles on grass at Hollywood Park.
There are five graded winners entered, but none that has won a Grade I event. My Baby Baby is coming off a 5-3/4-length victory at a Churchill Downs turf allowance race June 4, but she has never run beyond 1-1/16 miles.
McPeek is more concerned about the No. 12 post position his filly drew than any distance limitations.
"I think it's a non-issue," he said of the 1-1/4 miles. "I think she'll run all day and she's got a great kick when she finishes. I think it's more timing of the rider and whether or not she's good enough. You don't know until you play at this level whether they're good enough. But I think that's the case with every filly in the race."
Brice Blanc, who has won a lot of stakes races for McPeek, will ride My Baby Baby, who has won two of seven races for earnings of $126,239 and never run worse than third. She's 12-1 on the morning line in a race that appears wide open.
"I think (the price) is too long, but I'm not a gambling man, anyway," McPeek said. "I never bet. I know better. That's for the horse players."
(c) 2008 Los Angeles Newspaper group
Big Brown Trainer Dutrow Turns Over New Leaf, Finds More Drugs
I am starting to think the thoroughbred racing industry is breathing one big retrospective sigh of relief that Big Brown failed to capture the Triple Crown this spring. Rick Dutrow has now been hit with a 15-day suspension in Kentucky for providing one of his horses, Salute the Count (not a euphemism for masturbation, unfortunately), with a dose of Clenbuterol too close to race day. The horse raced in the Aegon Turf Sprint on May 2 at Churchill Downs (the day before the Derby) and tested positive for twice the allowable level.
Clenbuterol is closely related to Albuterol, a standard and legal drug given to horses as a bronchodilator, to increase lung capacity and function. Clenbuterol, unlike Albuterol, has steroid properties as well. It is permitted, but a dose may not be administered within a certain window before the horse races.
Dutrow, of course, is claiming distraction.
Allegations of cheating have followed Dutrow more than any other "elite" horseman. The ESPN article linked above lists numerous supported allegations of cheating, all involving horse drugging. It would be easy to believe that he failed to closely monitor his horse-drugging regiment with Big Brown running the next day, but not given Dutrow's history.
His personal history is checkered as well, with this article from the New York Daily News revealing his sordid drug and gambling past. While he seems to have beaten his addictions, one wonders what tricks he learned during his more desperate gambling runs.
Thoroughbred industry in Congressional hot seat
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers examining the health and safety of thoroughbred racehorses on Thursday advocated for a centralized governing authority that would regulate the sport, as critics of the racing industry called for congressional intervention to create that body.
"We're looking for Arnold Schwarzenegger's upper body and then we go to Don Knotts' legs and knees," said Jess Jackson, owner of Curlin, the 2007 Horse of the Year. "We don't need all of the inbreeding we have. I go to Argentina to buy horses; I go to Germany to buy horses because they have stronger bones and better knees. We need a league and a commissioner. We need action, please. Congress, help."
The hearing by a House consumer protection subcommittee came less than two months after the post-race death of filly Eight Belles at the Kentucky Derby, an event that created a public outcry and a sense of urgency for reform from inside and outside the sport.
Critics want a body that would regulate the industry, rather than leaving the ability to enforce rules and penalties to each of the 38 states where thoroughbred racing is permitted.
"They are like fiefdoms, and they each have their Nero-like CEOs," Arthur Hancock, a longtime thoroughbred owner and breeder, told the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee on commerce, trade and consumer protection. "We are too fragmented and too diverse.... Only a federal racing commission or commissioner can save us from ourselves."
The meeting, called by Reps. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.), the panel's chairman, and Ed Whitfield (R-Ky.), also examined breeding practices, the safety of various track surfaces and the use of steroids.
"There are those who believe that Congress should not be involved in horse racing," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). "However, Congress is already involved. The Interstate Horseracing Act, which is under this subcommittee's jurisdiction, allows race tracks a unique status under federal law. Unlike any gambling operation in America, they are allowed to transmit their racing product across state lines and receive wagers from bettors out of state."
Of about 15,000 licensed trainers in the U.S., nearly 9% have been cited for a medication violation in the last five years, according to information provided to the subcommittee by the Assn. of Racing Commissioners International. Some of those who testified said that, unlike in other sports, there doesn't appear to be a stigma attached to performance-enhancement violations, which are set by individual states.
"They give them a slap on the hand and they get one infraction after the other, and nothing ever happens to them," said Jack Van Berg, a Hall of Fame trainer. He called the prevalence of drug use "chemical warfare."
Thoroughbreds in the U.S. and Canada have fewer starts per year these days. In 2007, they averaged 6.3 per year, compared with 10.9 in 1950. Some have said this is evidence that steroids and breeding practices -- Eight Belles' great-grandfather, for instance, was also her great-great grandfather -- are weakening the overall breed.
Industry leaders, including the Jockey Club, the breed registry for thoroughbred horses in the U.S., Puerto Rico and Canada, indicated they would resist at least some parts of outside regulation.
Alan Marzelli, president and chief executive of the Jockey Club, said the "medication dilemma" was the industry's most pressing concern. But to deal with it and overall issues of horse health and safety, he wrote in a letter to the committee, the club will "harness the appropriate support from within the industry" to implement future recommendations.
Trainer Rick Dutrow, who admitted injecting Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner Big Brown with anabolic steroids, which were legal in the states where the horse raced, was expected to speak before the committee but didn't show up. Dutrow said he was too ill to attend, the Associated Press reported.
"I'm disappointed by his absence, and I'm disappointed that he did not feel the need to notify the subcommittee directly of his decision," Schakowsky said.
On Tuesday, a separate committee created by horse racing organizations shortly after Eight Belles' death in May recommended the elimination of steroids. Whitfield said the industry has frequently stated that it would police itself but doesn't follow through.
Whitfield said he didn't understand why Marzelli and other industry leaders, who have acknowledged there is a need for enforcement of uniform standards and a lack of ability to do so, are resisting outside intervention.
Marzelli responded: "I would like to see the industry regulate itself."
(c) 2008 Los Angeles Times
Big Brown Heavy Gambling Favorite To Complete Triple Crown
Big Brown has done everything that its owner and trainers have asked of him. He has trained well, and ran flawlessly in the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness.
Now, the horse will have another obstacle to overcome. He is the overwhelming gambling favorite in the Belmont Stakes on Saturday. If the odds makers are correct, Big Brown will be galloping off with the triple crown.
Sports books has come out as a 1/3 favorite. That means that gamblers would have to spend three hundred dollars to win one hundred dollars. The next closest horse in the odds is Casino Drive at 7/2.
No other horse has odds that are better than 10 to one. Denis of Cork is that horse. After Denis, the odds jump up into the twenties. Tale of Ekati and Behindatthebar are 20/1 and 25/1, respectively.
Ironically, with Big Brown being such a huge favorite, over half of the field is considered long shots. Three horses, Anak Nakal, Macho Again, and Readys Echo, are all 40/1.
It gets worse from there, with Icebad Crane and Mint Lane both at 50/1. With a filed filled with underdogs, and only one real challenger, this could be the first time on three decades that a horse actually wins the Triple Crown.
(c) 2002 - 2008 Casino Gambling Web, Ltd.
From The Back Porch - Horse Church
Now as we await a possible Triple Crown champion, which would be the first one in 30 years, there well may not have been a Kentucky Derby, thus a Triple Crown, if it wasn't for a clergyman back in 1923. Thoroughbred horse racing is a crucial economic factor in Kentucky.
A bill to prohibit pari-mutuel wagering was up before the Kentucky State legislature and had strong support from certain elements of Protestant fundamentalists.
If the Kentucky law passed, the thoroughbred industry was gone. It would have put an end to the Kentucky Derby, which in just in its first 49 years had become the premier event of American thoroughbred racing.
The legislature was debating the bill when help to defeat it arrived from an unexpected source, a Lexington clergyman, who gave a two hour and 30 minute speech supporting the pari-mutuel system of betting.
The Rev. Thomas Lever Settle was the rector of Church of the Good Shepherd Episcopal Church in Lexington.
Father Settle was a native of England, where horse racing has always been a revered activity for commoners, nobility and royalty. He told the legislators, "Before I went into the ministry, being an Englishman, I used to go occasionally to the races, and also being an Englishman, I occasionally bet on them."
He also said, "...in the four years I have been in Lexington I have spent many a happy afternoon sitting in that grandstand and strolling back to the paddock to look at the horses there, and getting some of God's great fresh air, in most delightful, beautiful, decent and proper surroundings."
Father Settle was not defending gambling, but facing reality. He told of seeing the dark side of the bookmakers.
Traditionally, in English racing, the wagering was done with independent bookmakers who leased little stands at tracks. English racing has also gone to pari-mutuel wagering, but a few "bookmakers" still have their operations just for the sake of tradition. As we know, the English are a very traditional people.
The priest went on to explain.
"With the bookmaker, a crooked horse owner can bet that his horse will lose. You can't do this with the pari-mutuels. I would rather see the present law in effect for that is something that will keep this thing just as straight as it is possible to be kept."
Just an explanation of Pari-mutuel wagering. Unlike other forms of gambling, the house does not win more when the players lose more. In pari-mutuel betting, a pool is established so that bettors are betting against each other, not the house.
Father Settle then noted, "I recognize that gambling is part of human nature," before wrapping up his presentation by stating, "Let me say to you men - and I see a great many men of vast influence in the horse industry here today - that the only way you can save racing and the horse, is by seeing to it always that the horse is allowed to do that which his very nature makes him want to do, to run straight."
He was the only member of the clergy to speak against the bill, though many ministers were present and hissed him during his oration. However, when he closed the legislators gave him a standing ovation. The bill was defeated by one vote.
In their gratitude the horsemen raised $50,000 and offered it to him for a new house and car, or whatever he wanted.
He refused by saying he did not do this for money.
However they insisted and the priest then gave in and told them they could build God a church.
His church had lost its sanctuary five years earlier in a fire and while some facilities were re-built, there was no real church.
The horsemen provided $300,000 to build the new church, unofficially known as "the Church of the Horsemen."
Its architecture is that of the many churches that dot the landscape in England.
As one enters the church there is a plaque which reads, "To the glory of God. This church is given to Him by the lovers of the horse from all over the country as a token of appreciation for their Father's goodness to His children...man."
Racing is so important to Kentucky that now the legislature even sweetens the purses at tracks there.
Trivia Time
In what Sherlock Holmes case was the fact the "dog didn't bark" an important element in the detective solving the mystery? Answer to last question.
In every Fibber McGee and Molly radio program the nation laughed when McGee opened the closet door and hundreds of items came crashing out to the floor.
(C) 2008 Beauregard Daily News
Kentucky Derby Gambling Results: Big Brown Wins
The Kentucky Derby had many horses in the field this year. Only one, Big Brown, was the favorite, and being the favorite today meant that nineteen other horses were aiming to defeat the odds and win the Derby.
That was not the case on a day when the second place finisher had to be euthanized immediately following the race. Big Brown was strong down the stretch and held on to win the Kentucky Derby.
Eight Belles finished second, but the joy that the owners of the horse felt was quickly turned to sorrow. The horse broke both of his ankles and had to be euthanized on the track after the race.
As for Big Brown, it was his day to shine, much like odds makers believed. He came into the race as the favorite, but some wondered how he would fare coming from the outside post. Once the horses separated in the backstretch, Big Brown had control most of the rest of the way.
Now, the horse will turn its attention to the triple crown. There has been no triple crown winner in a long time, and while horses have won the first two legs in the recent future, none have been special enough to win all three.
Big Brown won the Derby by four and three quarter lengths, and will most likely be favored to win the next step of the triple crown in two weeks.
May 4, 2008
Posted By Vincent Tapoglia III
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
(c) 2002 - 2008 Casino Gambling Web, Ltd.
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