posted May 23, 2008 at 15:12 EST in Triple Crown Betting Trends

We BetUS online racebook fans sure are a superstitious lot. Especially before a Triple Crown run at the Belmont Stakes. There are reasons for that, of course. Which one of us hasn’t been foiled by even money online off track betting chalk that failed to hit the board because he veered out of the gate at the start? Which one of us hasn’t used the daily racing form horse we liked in a trifecta or exacta box because we couldn’t get over the fact that the jockey wore pink and green silks?

Which one of us has decided not to place a 2008 Belmont Stakes online bet on a horse because we started thinking of a particular song or particular smell while handicapping the race?

That’s right. All of us. It’s the nature of online horse race betting. Well, guess what? We’re not the only ones who are superstitious. Almost every one involved in thoroughbred racing has a superstitious side to him.

Which, of course, is why Richard Dutrow’s talk regarding both Edgar Prado and Big Brown’s chief rival, Casino Drive, is so strange. Big Brown, by the way, is resting in the stall that former Belmont winner Empire Maker before his Belmont victory. That should be a sign that Dutrow does believe in the “gods of horse racing”. If that’s so, then why be so harsh towards his rivals?

Richard Dutrow strikes me as a man with a lot on his mind. He’s always smiling but it’s one of those strange, off-kilter smiles, the sort that you might see from the kid stocking up the vending machines at a hospital or something.

I know enough about his career, and I have won enough money on his horses, to also know that he is a supremely talented trainer. But I have to wonder when the trainer of the one horse in the past thirty years with the best chance to win the Triple Crown comes out and questions the ride that Edgar Prado had on Riley Tucker in the Preakness Stakes.

According to Dutrow, who uses Prado on a number of horses in New York, “He was trying to keep our horse in the box. It didn’t look like he was out to get the best finish out of his horse.”

Uh…Richard you won the race by widening lengths. What’s your problem? Prado on Riley Tucker drifted towards Big Brown, yes, but it looked like he did so because Hey Byrn to his outside was pushing him toward Dutrow’s runner. In any case, does it matter? I mean, trying to box in the best horse in the race isn’t exactly bad race riding.

The reason I bring this up is because Dutrow is playing with fire when he starts acting as if Big Brown can’t lose the Belmont Stakes. Being confident is one thing, but saying that a jockey like Edgar Prado was trying to thwart your horse’s Preakness victory is just bad business.

Just like its bad business to say that Casino Drive, a horse who obviously has the ability to contend in the Belmont Stakes based on every single online racebook handicapping angle available, “has no chance of beating our horse.”

By bad business I go back to the single most important factor in online racebook betting and thoroughbred racing in general - - good old-fashioned luck.

Bad mojo is bad mojo. Mojo, a term for either good or bad luck used in the Deep South, absolutely exists in horse racing. If you doubt me, then think about how many times a 1 to 5 shot, or 1 to 9 shot for that matter, has run up the track for no apparent reason other then the horse just “didn’t run a step.”

We’ve all been there. So has Richard Dutrow who has saddled many chalk horses to just not run a step in all sorts of races.

I understand that Dutrow is confident. I would be too if I trained a horse like Big Brown, but there’s one thing that the gods of thoroughbred horse racing betting hate about trainers, jockeys, and online racebook betting fans. That would be the lack of humility.

Dutrow’s lack of humility might just bite Big Brown in the ass come June 7th.

Keep checking the Locker Room all through the Triple Crown season, as we will cover the trainers, horses and jockeys in each race. You can get your early Belmont Stakes at Belmont Park bets in now in the BetUS sportsbook in the Future / props section, under Horse Futures: 2008 Belmont Stakes.