URGENT! Pool has grown to $120 in tonight's pick 'em contest! (1) Predict the winner of Race 7 at Delta. (A draw from all winning entries will be made in the Clubhouse at 9 p.m. Friday. The winner gets $20 in betting vouchers, doubled to $40 on the spot if the winner is there.) (2) Predict the pick-3 (races 7, 8 and 9) and win $60 (plus $20 more if winner is present Friday night). Email your predictions IN THE SUBJECT LINE of your email, include your name and address, and mail to theinsider@assiniboiadowns.com before 8:30 p.m. tonight. Watch the races on Shaw 87 or MTS 179-180. See last week's ONLY winner below.

NOTE TO MOTORISTS: Backstretch entrance now closed. With the pace increasing to prepare horses for the live season that opens May 10, the backstretch entrance to Assiniboia Downs is now closed to the general public. Enter now from the Perimeter Hwy or Portage Avenue.

Fighting to get into the world championships
These top eight Canadian drivers will be fighting it out in eight races Saturday for the right to go to Norway in May to compete for the world driving title.

Who's going to win the right to represent Canada at the world harness driving championships in Norway in May? You'll find out Saturday by watching the top eight drivers in the country fighting it out in eight races at Fraser Downs. The races should be wild because every position carries points. In other words, a seventh-place finish is better than eighth--so you can expect all-out furious action every step of the way.

10 championship T-shirts to
be given away
The competition begins at 3:15 p.m. AND YOU CAN HAVE A $500 STAKE in the outcome by entering the contest to predict the top five finishers! Also, Canadian Driving Championship T-shirts will be given away between the races. See the drivers and their bios here. AND GET YOUR ENTRY IN! Look for entries at the track and at OTB locations.

Other Saturday sizzler: The biggie Derby prep race on Saturday is the $500,000 Lane's End Stakes from Turfway Park, my favourite track these days. This race is also your Show Me the Roses contest play. What are the current standings?

The driving championships should be a nice change of pace (literally) Saturday afternoon. Even if you're a purebred thoroughbred lover, you've got to admit that having a system where drivers have to be fighting tooth-and-nail even for 6th and 7th place means this competition should be worth watching just for the craziness of it all. Eight drivers, eight races, every single placing a meaningful struggle. It will be like the famous chariot race in the movies, except no one's going to be allowed to have wheels with vicious cutting blades inserted in the centre. Stewards, take note!

So, with spring only hours away (begins at 6:44 a.m. Winnipeg time tomorrow morning) and car-devouring pot holes lurking every two blocks or so, let's see what else deserves neighing about in the lengthening days ahead....

Horse of the Year for 2008
Monsoon Rain was named 2008 Horse of the Year at Assiniboia Downs at the 25th annual awards banquet Saturday night presented by the local HBPA (Horsemen's Benevolent and Protective Association) and CTHS (Canadian Thoroughbred Horse Society) and held in the Finish Line banquet room. Queen Tina won honours as Manitoba-bred Horse of the Year. About 200 attended the awards dinner. In the picture above, Assiniboia Downs general manager Sharon Gulyas and NDP-MLA (Assiniboia) Jim Rondeau (right) present award to Mitchell King, groom of Monsoon Rain (inset--winning Wheat City Stakes) Full details and other awards. (Gerry Hart photos.)

ALAN'S THE ONE

His horseplaying style is worth emulating

Super-sleuth Alan Hampton (left) receives $100 from promo coordinator Allan Gray
Accountant Alan Hampton does his horseplaying below the radar. He's quiet, unassuming--but deadly in his ability to sniff out horses that escape the notice of others. He did it again Saturday in a little contest called Death by Golden Gate and it was his pick in that contest that prompted me to offer this salute to him. Four contestants were still standing in the fourth race at Golden Gate and three of them did the obvious: they picked a horse ridden by winningest North American jockey Russell Baze. But not Alan. He noted a first-time starter with a 6-furlong workout. That's a long workout few young horses get. So Alan took that horse and, tah-dah!, his perception paid off: The horse won and he was awarded a crisp $100 bill as winner of the contest.

What that showed was the mindset of someone who, in 2007, earned a trip to Las Vegas by winning one of the five monthly horseplayer contests the Downs holds during live racing. Alan digs. He considers angles others gloss over. He's the consummate horseplayer. And, oh, he also had this to say about the five trips the Downs gives away: "People don't realize what a terrific opportunity it is. Airfare for two, hotel room, meals." And, of course, the opportunity to grab a chunk of $1 million offered in the Las Vegas tournament. Your first chance will come on the last Saturday of May. Even if Alan wins again, there'll be four more trips left for you to go after

HUNCH PLAY ON THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING

Be foxy to attract king and jack to win $550!

This hand could win you $550!
Will something foxy bring you luck?
It's a spring custom. On the first day of spring, the king and jack get together to organize the fox hunts. Can it also mean the one-eyed jack and one-eyed king will get together in the same poker hand tomorrow night, the first day of spring? If there ever was a hunch play for the Texas hold 'em match, that's got to be it. So, you ask, what will tempt the two one-eyed royals to meet in the same hand? I'm thinking something "foxy." A lucky fox charm, a kid's book about foxes, dressing like a fox (you too, gals!), acting "sly as a fox," inviting Megan Fox to cheer you on, etc. And what's it worth? $550 cash if you win a hand with a one-eyed jack and king So fox wannabees-for-the-night, you know what to do! Get into the game simply by entering the free draw or playing "21" before the game. And practice foxy moves.

CONTEST CORNER

Edward is crowned king; Daddy's trip helps son

King Edward
If Prince Edward wants to find out what it's like to be king, he oughta visit Assiniboia Downs. Edward "Ed" McKenna, assembly technician at Boeing, was crowned poker's King Edward last Friday night for outplaying nine rivals, including last week's king, Harold Wiens, and a previous king, Terry Pagee, who, in haste to get to a social downstairs at the Downs, said "all in" with a bunch of nothing. Ed called with just a king but it was enough to scoop Terry's chips. But lady luck returned to Terry's side at the social because he won the big draw prize of a set of golf clubs. I guess that's why they call fate "fickle." King Edward received $100 in wagering vouchers and the right to defend his throne tomorrow where the poker prop (winning a hand with a one-eyed king and jack) will be a whopping $550 cash.

MY PICK 'EM CONTEST: Who needs Dad? Just one person picked the $56 longshot, #9 Somethang Comin, in my weekly pick 'em contest at Delta Downs last Thursday--refrigeration technician Brett Roberts, son of "Hollywood" Jim Roberts who, you may recall, won $5,000 in Hollywood Park's show contest. Brett made his impressive selection without Daddy's help, apparently, because Daddy was in Toronto. And it sure worked out. "He didn't have his old man weighing him down," Jim said. Brett has $20 in wagering vouchers waiting for him in the VLT lounge. No one predicted the pick3 (9-10-8) so $20 is added to that jackpot. So $120 is up for grabs tonight! See the top of today's Insider for details.

FRIDAY'S "21" CONTEST: Inventory counter Rod Zaretsky and bookstore owner Dan Black split the $100 prize. How to play.

The landscape is a-changing. Disappearing from serious contender status the last two weekends were Haynesfield, Midshipman, Vineyard Haven, This One’s For Phil, Silver City, Notonthesamepage, Patena and many lesser lights. Everyone’s flavour-of-the-week super horse, Old Fashioned, suffered his first defeat. Even California’s top hope, Pioneerof the Nile, looked fairly ordinary against a mediocre field. Thankfully, Stardom Bound ran herself out of contention in the estimation of her owners.

What does this mean to players? No need to panic. Every year as races stretch out to more than mile, the limitations of a number of horses become exposed. Try to focus on the positives that were presented the last two weekends: Quality Road, sick in his previous start, recovered to return to the elite status everyone predicted for him at two. Friesen Fire threw aside another group of challengers and has looked better and better as the race distances have increased. In New York, I Want Revenge took to dirt as well as his trainer had predicted and won in a laugher. Keep track of these improving players! Ultimately, distance stops many of the fastest 3-year-olds in training.

Today in Dubai, watch how Desert Party and Regal Ransom perform. Suddenly, they are no longer under the radar.

JUST THE FACTS: Terrible horse finishes second I was accused in a horseplayer's blog two weeks ago of "shooting my mouth off" in The Insider, March 5 (Tip o' the Week) by justifying the performances of the first and second place finishers in a race at Turf Paradise. The blogger said those horses were really so terrible they would likely finish "in fifth and sixth place" the next time they ran at the same class level. Well, here's a follow-up: A reader called me this week to report that the second-place finisher didn't finish "sixth" as the critic predicted but rather finished second at a higher class level in a turf race. The horse was Gorilla Mountain who raced Monday in the fourth race at Turf Paradise. I appreciate hearing from readers who take exception to intemperate remarks and simply want to get the facts on the record.

YOU NAMED ME WHAT? Hamstrung by a need for civility in naming their kids, horseowners get to unload wacky names on their horses. This past weekend was a potent one for tongue-twisters and screwball head-scratchers. The best one was pointed out by Randy Premachuk at the track on Saturday: Fatladyhzntsungyet (Laurel Park, Race 6) Others: Doadeerafemaledeer (Gulfstream, Race 10 Sunday); Thiscatcanscat (Tampa Bay, Race 5 Saturday); Juliesdiorbracelet (Santa Anita, Race 10 Saturday).

TIP O' THE WEEK: Analyze closing kick on turf

Get a betting edge by calculating closing kick
Turf racing is all about a horse's ability to fly down the stretch late. So the way to find contenders is to calculate how fast each horse has closed in previous turf races. (1) In one-mile races, look for the final fraction of around 24 seconds. (2) At 1 1/16-mile, look for 30 seconds and (3) at 1 1/8-mile, look for 36 seconds. (Once you've calculated these numbers, take off 1/5-second for every length the horse makes up in the stretch.)

Take your time on this. I guarantee it will pay off! Go to this race from Turf Paradise last Saturday. The #4 horse, Lesson in Deceit, won easily, sweeping all the horses in the stretch and that paid off handsomely at odds of 5-1. The clue to his win was in his last turf race two races ago. It was a 1-mile race so let's see how close he gets to 24 seconds. The final time of the race was 1:37.98. Let's say 1:38. Now subtract 1:12.34 (the time at the 3/4-pole) from that number. You have 25.66 seconds. But then subtract the nine lengths Lesson in Deceit had made up in the last part of the race, at 1/5th-second per length. That's almost two seconds taken off 25.66 and what do you have? A final fraction of less than 24 seconds. A great number compared to other horses. Sure, it takes time and work but, at odds of 5-1, isn't it worth it? A $20 bet would have gotten you $120. Not bad for doing a little arithmetic! This is the secret to finding the best horses in route races on the turf. Ya duz the work, ya gets the reward!

UPCOMING EVENTS: Here comes richest race!

Get ready for Super Saturday, Mar. 28: The richest race in the world, the $6 million Dubai World Cup and one of the most important Kentucky Derby prep races, the $750,000 Florida Derby, will be running that day. Races from Dubai begin at 8:40 a.m. GET HEADS UP ON THE BIG DAY by coming to the Climb the Ladder presentation Thursday night. After getting tips from the experts on "How to Find Hidden Value" in races, there will be a discussion about Saturday's races, too. So don't miss next Thursday's Climb the Ladder session beginning 7 p.m. in the Finish Line banquel hall. It's free to attend.

VOTE! VOTE! VOTE! Time is running out for you to vote for your favourite horse photo on the Downs' FACEBOOK page here. Someone's going to be awarded a $100 prize package.

Book today for Easter Brunch: After you've built up an appetite by hiding (or finding) Easter eggs on Sunday, April 12, you'll want to come to the Downs for the famous Easter brunch. All you can eat only $18.95. It gets filled quickly so reserve quickly! Phone 885-3330.

Do you have a foxy attitude goin'?