BC Marathon champ heads Woodbine stakes

Horseracing Betting Lines

12/01/2011 - Toronto, ON (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Afleet Again, the surprise winner of this year's Breeders' Cup Marathon, tops a field of six in Sunday's $150,000 Valedictory Stakes at Woodbine Race Course. The 1 3/4-mile race, the same distance as the Marathon, will be run over Woodbine's synthetic main surface.

Afleet Again, owned by Kasey K Racing Stable, has drawn post three with Cornelio Velasquez returning to ride the four-year-old colt. Butch Reid trains the gray son of Afleet Alex who won the Marathon as a 41-1 longshot.

In the $500,000 Marathon, the gray four-year-old trailed for most of the race, running in ninth about a dozen lengths from the lead. At the top of the stretch a gaggle of horses were on the lead as Afleet Again began to move on the outside. The colt opened up down the stretch and posted a 2 1/4-length victory over Birdrun.

"He was very aggressive, which is rare for this horse," Reid said following the upset win. "This horse is a real Jekyll and Hyde. Sometimes he shows up and sometimes he doesn't really. He (Velasquez) said he was very aggressive. I saw the fractions they were going, 48 in the first half, and he was only six or seven lengths out. I thought we were in pretty good shape."

The Breeders' Cup victory was the colt's first of the year in nine starts and his fourth win in 24 career races. He has lifetime earnings of $686,470.

Making just his third start of the year will be last year's Valedictory runner-up Eye of the Leopard. Trained by Mark Frostad, the five-year-old will be ridden by Luis Contreras from post four.

Eye of the Leopard was off from last year's Valedictory Stakes until the Durham Cup in October when he was fourth. Three weeks ago the Sam-Son Farms' horse finished second at Woodbine in an allowance race.

In 15 career starts Eye of the Leopard has four wins and $921,487.

Here is the full field for the Valedictory in post position order: Alpha Bettor, Tyler Pizarro; Eagle Poise, Patrick Husbands; Afleet Again, Cornelio Velasquez; Eye of the Leopard, Luis Contreras; Harrods Creek, Chantal Sutherland and Getta Rhythm, Justin Stein.

Post-time is set for 5:21 p.m. (et).

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Michael Vick is back, Brett Favre isn't and the NFC East remains the best division in the NFC, maybe in all of football.

As players start to gather for the start of another season, some things change and some stay the same in the world of the NFL.

Bet 2010 Super Bowl Odds

The NFC East has been the dominant division in the National Conference for a while, despite limited playoff success, save for the New York Giants surprise Super Bowl win two seasons ago.

Hell, there's a generation of kids in Texas who have never seen the Cowboys win a playoff game (last win was in 1996).

But collectively, the Giants, Eagles, Cowboys and Redskins (well, maybe not so much the Redskins) are as good as a division gets in an NFC conference that has struggled to stay competitive with the AFC side.

Sports bettors have both acknowledged the NFC East's dominance, as one glance at the NFL future odds menu will show.

Looking over the NFL betting odds at online sports book MySportsbook.com we see the top three teams listed to win the NFC Championship are all from the NFC East:

Dallas Cowboys - 7 - 1

Philadelphia Eagles - 13 - 2

New York Giants - 9 - 2

Slotting in behind these three are two teams from the NFC North: the Minnesota Vikings (15-2) and the Chicago Bears (10-1).

Again, despite the lack of recent playoff success, the Dallas Cowboys are popular with the sports betting community, as they hold 14% of all the money wagered on who will win the NFC Championship.

So far, the New York Giants are the bettors' favorite to represent their conference in the Super Bowl, as they have 24% of the overall NFC Championship betting volume.

And what about the Philadelphia Eagles? For the most part, the Eagles had a very productive offseason, the kind that could bring them back to the top.

They had a good draft adding the likes of WR Jeremy Maclin and RB LeSean McCoy.

Unfortunately, the team received a blow when long-time defensive coordinator Jim Johnson passed away on Tuesday.

But this team will make a real run at the division title this year. Going into the regular season, Philly is listed at +240 to win the division.

Last season the Eagles were 9-6-1 SU and 10-6 ATS.

Teams from the NFC East will play teams from the AFC West in the regular season and the Eagles haven't really been a good bet in the last 20 games against the likes of San Diego, Oakland, K.C. and Denver, only going 8-12 ATS.

Two seasons removed from that Super Bowl title, the New York Giants see themselves listed as the odds-on favorite in NFC East championship futures at +162.

Plaxico Burress is gone and with him all the bad publicity surrounding the gun in the sweatpants incident, but can they replace him in the offense?

Last season the Giants were a very reliable bet going 12-4 ATS.

In the Giants' last 20 games against fellow teams from the NFC East; they are 13-7 ATS.

Dallas is listed at +240 to win the division.

Dallas went 9-7 SU and 7-9 ATS last season and with the amount of talent the Cowboys have, a similar performance won't do.

The Cowboys have been atrocious against divisional rivals, going 6-14 ATS in their last 20.

The Washington Redskins are longshots to win the division at +550.

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