02/08/2010 - New Orleans, LA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Less than 12 hours after the New Orleans Saints captured Super Bowl XLIV, the other champion residing in the Big Easy took to the track for a jog.
Horse of the Year Rachel Alexandra took a jog around the Fair Grounds early Monday morning. The four-year-old filly galloped around the track as she prepares for her first race of 2010.
Monday's gallop came just two days after Rachel worked four-furlongs with exercise rider Dominic Terry. In Saturday's workout the double Eclipse Award winner covered the half-mile in 50 3/5 seconds.
"She's very special," said trainer Steve Asmussen on Saturday. "I thought she looked beautiful. She went :50 3/5 today off of her :52 the other day. I think that's pretty much the progression that we're expecting."
Last Thursday at Oaklawn Park it was announced that the Arkansas track will increase the purse for the Apple Blossom Stakes from $500,000 to $5 million if both Rachel and champion mare Zenyatta start in the April 13 race.
While the owners of both thoroughbreds have expressed interest in the offer, none have committed themselves to the race.
Rachel Alexandra is co-owned by Jess Jackson and Harold McCormick, and Zenyatta is owned by Jerry and Ann Moss.
Zenyatta, who is stabled at Hollywood Park, won the 2008 Apple Blossom while Rachel won two stakes last year at Oaklawn Park.
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Washington, DC (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Washington Wizards home game against
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Both teams were unable to
Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).
Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.
Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).
Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.
Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.
The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.
What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.
Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.
But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.
In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.
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