Because that will give you an idea how horses from, say, the Todd Pletcher stable will perform compared to the stable of, say, John Wayne.

Choosing the right stable coming to the 2008 Kentucky Derby demands stern attention to detail. Here are some betting tips that could help you strengthen your decision in picking the correct stable that will help you win big bucks.

FIRST, pick a trainer who has several talented 2008 Triple Crown series champ nominees.

Right now, trainers Nick Zito, Steve Asmussen, Bill Mott, Bob Baffert, and Todd Pletcher seem to be holding the strongest hands with each barn containing several top contenders and a few sleepers as well. These trainers are sure to rack up points on the Derby Trail with a bevy of talented 3-year-olds at their disposal.

Trainer Nick Zito has two horses that will be running for the 2008 Kentucky Derby, Cool Coal Man and Anak Nakal. Cool Coal Man won the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth Stakes off of…

Well, without the horseshit coming from them horses of course. That would be too obvious to write about.

As the clock ticks for yet another Breeders’ Cup betting war, we are somewhat in the middle of all these controversies surrounding the world of sports lately.

Confused? Let me remind you. New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick used a spying cameraman to read the New York Jets’ defensive hand signals to start the NFL season after Barry Bonds became the all-time home run leader with performance enhancing drugs.

Oh yeah, it didn’t end there. A few months earlier, NBA referee Tim Donaghy was found guilty of betting on the NBA games he worked, therefore giving him the privilege to let a team cover any spread depending on where his money was riding with. Sounds like the perfect handicapper eh?

And don’t get me started with the Tour de France and all its doping scandals.

As the 2007 Breeders’ Cup Classic draws near, we’re may be looking at a sporting event even dirtier than Barry Bonds, Belichick and all them cheating sonsabitches combined. Why? How? Read on.

Trainers of the three biggest stables in horse racing, that’s Todd Pletcher, Steve Asmussen and…

Yep, and you can do it with a colt named, ”I – just – fucked – Britney’s – brains – out” for all we care.

Yep, DigiTurf.com lets you have your own horse and let’s you enter a three-leg horse race to win the website’s version of the Triple Crown. If you’re too lazy to go to Belmont Park to witness the final leg of the Triple Crown series at the 2007 Belmont Stakes, at least you can experience winning it at DigiTurf.com, sort of…

DigiTurf.com makes virtual horse racing as close to what we’ll have at Belmont Park on Saturday. You’ll get to have your own stable where you can train your own horse and enter the BIG THREE of horse racing that will let you win the Triple Crown. That is if you’re really really good.

But of course, just like in the real thing, you have to qualify for DigiTurf’s Triple Crown championship series first. Yep, if you wondered what the world is like to a Todd Pletcher, at least you’ll have a glimpse of it at DigiTurf.com.

The DigiTurf season is equivalent to four calendar months. And during that stretch, the site will have a total of 48 Triple Crown qualifiers. These qualifying races will take place over three distances; Sprint, Classic and Stayer.

Users can enter these qualifying races and if…

All I can say is… WHAT THE HELL?!?

Yep, that was the initial reaction when I first heard of the news. Apparently, Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson will be racing against a horse named Restore the Road on turf at Cincinnati’s River Downs on June 9.

That’s the same day when the 2007 Belmont Stakes come out of the gates to culminate this year’s Triple Crown series. I guess ”Ocho Cinco” here wants to chime in with that day’s little ”horse racing” atmosphere eh? Hey, what can you do? Chad Johnson have always liked the attention.

Chad’s latest exploit is for the benefit of his favorite charity, ”Feed The Children.” The race, billed as ”Man vs. Beast,” will be the feature race at River Downs on June 9 when Belmont Park hosts the 2007 Belmont Stakes in New York City.

Ocho Cinco’s rival, Restore the Road, is a 4-year-old colt trained by Ivan Vasquez and owned by Patricia Genn. Restore the Horse will break from the inside at the eight hole while the NFL football wide receiver will break from the outside rail going 1/16th of a mile.

”I’m looking forward to it,” Cincinnati Bengals wideout Chad Johnson said Friday, after the first day of minicamp. ”It’s going to be fun. Some of the…”

No it won’t be Street Sense nor will it be Curlin.

Yeah, sure, it would be funny as hell to see Street Sense or Curlin line up at the starting grid to take part in the annual Indianapolis 500, unfortunately for them, they wanted the Colts Peyton Manning piloted to the Super Bowl.

The only problem is, the Indianapolis Colts management didn’t permit it. And mind you, that’s after they agreed to let Colts quarterback Peyton Manning start things off in the Indianapolis 500 on Sunday. Go figure.

It turns out that Paul Diatlovich, primary owner of PDM Racing, asked permission to paint the Colts’ team colors (that’s dark blue and white…) on Jimmy Kite’s No.18 car with a message on the car’s sidepod that reads, ”Go Colts” for the Indianapolis 500.

The Colts management turned it down because of sponsorship concerns. (Either that or they just don’t want to see anything that represents their team get blown to pieces. After all, the NFL sure have all these curses and shit…)

Understandably, Diatlovich was upset.

”I’m extremely upset with the narrow-minded, pinheaded leadership of the Colts team and the NFL,” said Diatlovich, who lives in the city. ”It’s…”

When a race horse contender wins the Breeders Cup Juvenile, he automatically gets brownie points for his Kentucky Derby campaign for the next year.

Apparently, though, this feat doesn’t do much for the horse in the end. Some people even call it a jinx to win the BC Juvenile as the winning horses almost never end up doing the Parade of the Roses.

Expert horse race handicapper, Cindy Pierson Dulay, cites that in the long BC Juvenile history only two horses who finished in the top three fo the race have gone on to win the Kentucky Derby: Spend A Buck (3rd in 1984) and Alysheba (3rd in 1986). Since then it has been a very long dry spell.

Checking out the stats last year’s very promising Stevie Wonderboy, the 2005 BC Juvenile champ, was plagued with injuries even before he can speed off for his Derby campaign. 2004 winner Wilko was a 2005 Derby contender but failed to even come near the title.

Although the 2004 BC Juvenile second placer, Afleet Alex, went on to win the Preakness and Belmont Stakes also in 2005.

Dulay also said that of the 66 horses who have finished first, second, or third in the Juvenile between 1984 and 2005, 34 have failed to even start in the Derby and only nine have managed to finish at least third.

Ergo, the best these Juvenile trotters could manage in the…

Ultimately cool sport? Racing. Travel? Space. Fashion? Clothes you can wear for both.

Auto racing on Formula One and NASCAR is to speed racers as outer space is to, um, floaters. Not surprisingly, they’re often the same people, and this has to be their wet dream come true: those two sharing mutual unreachability in cost of travel, the rush, and now, jumpsuits as spacesuits.

The spiffy-looking car racing uniforms worn by schicons of cool in their McLarens and Ferraris have been cited as references to designing spacesuits that will be worn by the first wave of mass space tourists — civilian passengers to the newest luxury travel destination, outer space. In true F1 and NASCAR fashion, the spacesuits will bear the colors and logos of the rocket firms on which space tourists are flying. This, according to Orbital Outfitters, a new company based in Los Angeles.

“When someone puts on an IS3 [sub-orbital space suit], they will be protected by the best technology we can muster. Yet they will look like they have stepped off the set of a science fiction movie,” says Orbital Outfitters president Rick Tumlinson. Sci-fi isn’t far from the truth about space travel, which categorically can be afforded by no one else but the filthy wealthy. The rest of us can settle with flight fantasies as we race horses online or steal an Aston Martin on Grand Theft Auto.

There are travel agencies, and then there is a space travel agency. Space Adventures offers tour packages of spacewalks 350 km (220 miles) above…

Pennsylvania, known as the Quaker State since 1776, breaks new ground with its historic first casino.

And what a first it is — legit, all hours, and from the same Indian tribe that runs the world’s second largest casino. Pennsylvania’s new Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs is a sister casino of Mohegan Sun Resort and Casino at Connecticut, next in size to Foxwoods Resort Casino (another Indian casino, also in Connecticut).

With the establishment of its first casino, is Pennsylvania poised to become another casino gambling capital of the US — just like Las Vegas, Atlantic City, or Connecticut?

Recreational facilities in Pennsylvania mostly comprise zoos, like Philadelphia Zoo — incidentally, the first ever US zoo, and amusement parks, like Dorney Park & Wildwater Kingdom. Add casino gambling to the list now, what with the recent arrival of a casino to boost the swapping of free harness racing tips at Pocono Downs harness racing complex, located in Plains Township just outside Wilkes-Barre.

The new Indian casino is initially a $70 million slot parlor. It is two casino floors’ worth of some 1,100 slot machines, including Pocono Pennies, Lucky Lemmings, and Triple Stars. Pennsylvanians can bet anywhere from a penny to $25 per spin at the slot machines.

Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs also happens to be the…

November first. Day of the Dead in Mexico, death day at Stardust Las Vegas Resort & Casino.

This is the day some observe All Souls’ Day, others, Día de los Muertos. In Las Vegas, it is the day Stardust sees its dreariest, gloomiest Halloween: the calendar date when the casino hotel, after operating for close to 60 years, is scheduled to stop taking all reservations, carrying on with prior commitments until imploded early next year. Stardust is ghost-like from here; it’s the beginning of the end.

Was that name doomed from the start? What games of chance will be lost to us, now that owner Boyd Gaming is gambling away this Las Vegas institution in favor of a new $4 billion megaresort befitting the Strip?

Bustling and spread out across the ground floor, Stardust Casino is no doubt the highest-traffic area at the hotel. Other than convention spaces bringing equally steady business, the gaming spaces teem with the most customers. People saunter nonstop on the red carpet, and you wonder how, within 85,000 sqft; the new Echelon Place replacing Stardust will offer a 140,000 sqft casino.

A thing of note about Stardust Casino is, many say, its gamblers look more Downtown than Strip. As far back as I can remember, the most I see here are over-45 geezers…

Five more days and the 2006 Breeders Cup betting is about to reach a boiling point.

Everyone’s agog now checking Breeders Cup horse contenders odds, turning to handicappers for tips and picks, and I’ll bet you you’ll have to go through a large haystack to find a yet unsold ticket for the event on Saturday at Churchill Downs.

Racing experts are eager to see if top BC Classic entry Bernardini can live up to all the hype. Why All HorseRacing just gave him a 1-1 odds to win. Can you believe that? Skeptics are rolling their eyes and still would rather put their money on the longshots.

I’d also like to play devil’s advocate on this one. What are the odds that 2005 Kentucky Derby champ Giacomo will pull a victory at the $5 million race? What, you’re laughing now aren’t you?

I kinda like the guy, I mean horse. He was a longshot at last year’s KY Derby but he won. And the BC will be at The Downs, an all too familiar track for him. I don’t believe he’s a fluke either. He was able to place 3rd at that year’s Preakness. And this year he had a strong win at the San Diego Handicap at Delmar.

He did however finished 5th in the Pacific Classic. Yes, he’s not…