Hot Belmont Tip

by Luckbox

I'll keep this short for those of you who don't care about horse racing (and therefore, don't care about making awesome amounts of money based on my handicapping insights!).

I'm eyeing a horse you probably haven't heard of. And his name is poker-blogger worthy, Casino Drive.

Back in 2006, I luckboxed my way into a pretty big pay day in the Belmont. I keyed in on Jazil and managed to hit the win, the exacta, the trifecta and the superfecta for a $1250 payout. I haven't yet been able to repeat that success.

Jazil is the reason I like Casino Drive. You see, they're half-brothers. Better Than Honor is the dam ("mom") of Jazil and Casino Drive, as well as Rags to Riches, the filly who shocked the Belmont field in 2007. If you're keeping track, that's the 2006 Belmont and the 2007 Belmont.

Better Than Honor was sired by Deputy Minister (her "dad") who has sired 80 different graded stakes winners. Deputy Minister is also the damsire ("granddad") of Bob and John and Curlin... perhaps you remember them.

Casino Drive was sired by Mineshaft, the 2003 U.S. Horse of the year. Mineshaft's blood line runs back through his sire A.P. Indy and his grandsire Seattle Slew.

Long story short (too late), Casino Drive has the blood line. He's very lightly raced, however, winning his only start in February at the Kyoto in Japan. He won by 11 1/2 lengths.

Casino Drive will make his American debut tomorrow at Belmont in the Peter Pan Stakes. He drew the rail (not my favorite, but not terrible) in the 9 horse field and will be ridden by legendary jockey Kent Desormeaux (who, you may remember, just won the Kentucky Derby aboard Big Brown). Casino Drive is the current morning line favorite at 2/1 (coupled with his stablemate), so it's not like he's some well-kept secret.

Regardless of how he does tomorrow (not all horses do well the first race after being shipped), Casino Drive will run in the Belmont Stakes in a month. And if Big Brown has already wrapped up the first two legs of the Triple Crown, Casino Drive could get a great price and be just the kind of horse to pull an upset.

Update: Casino Drive won the Peter Pan Stakes by 5 3/4 lengths, and that was despite getting out of the gate slowly. He went off at 6/5 stakes, so my $20 win bet only paid me $45. But, I also wheeled him on top of a $5 exacta with the rest of the field and an 18/1 longshot placed. That bet paid $166.25. Not a bad day at the virtual track.

| 2008 Belmont Stakes , | Betting the Ponies , | Horse Racing