Royal Delta set for Sabin

Horseracing Betting Lines

02/22/2012 - Hallandale Beach, FL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Champion filly Royal Delta is ready to make her 2012 debut in Saturday's $100,000 Sabin Stakes at Gulfstream Park. The four-year-old will face four challengers in the 1 1/6-mile race.

Royal Delta, winner of last year's Breeders' Cup Ladies' Classic, will once again have Jose Lezcano in the saddle and the pair will break from post two. Eclipse Award winner Bill Mott trains for Besilu Stables.

The filly is using the Sabin as a prep race for the $10 million Dubai World Cup on March 31 versus males.

"This is what it's all about," said Mott. "I'd like to see a good, solid effort in this race so we can look forward to Dubai. "She's doing really well. She's had a bit of a rest but her recent works have been good. She's showed she is willing to go long, willing to work, and she looks good doing it."

In 2011, Royal Delta won the Black-Eyed Susan and Alabama Stakes and was second to Havre de Grace in the Beldame. She's earned $1,694,600 in eight career starts with five wins.

"I think we're at a slight disadvantage at a mile-and-a-sixteenth," Mott noted. "It's a short wire turning for home and I don't think it plays into our filly's style. I don't think that's her best race, she's a bit of a stretch runner. I don't think the conditions are the most ideal but we're running in the race that's available."

Joining last year's champion three-year-old filly is Awesome Maria, winner of last year's Sabin. The five-year-old mare, trained by Todd Pletcher, has drawn to the outside of Royal Delta and will be ridden by her regular jockey John Velazquez.

"She's training exceptionally well," said Pletcher. "We've been a little frustrated because she's been ready to run for a little while. We tried to get her in an allowance race about a month ago which we didn't get to go. We've kind of landed in a difficult situation running off a long layoff in a tough race, but she's trained very well, she likes this track, so we're optimistic. She's a top class filly at a mile-and-a-sixteenth and so we'll hope for the best."

Owned by Paul Robsham, Awesome Maria is making her first start since June of last year when she won the Ogden Phipps Handicap at Belmont Park. Before being sidelined with an injury, she was perfect in all four 2011 starts, including the Sabin. The gray mare has earned $842,375 with seven wins in 12 career starts.

Here is the complete field in post position order: Ghostly Darkness, Rajiv Maragh; Royal Delta, Jose Lezcano; Awesome Maria, John Velazquez; Groupie Doll, Calvin Borel and Canadian Mistress, Elvis Trujillo.

Post-time for the Sabin is set for 3:50 p.m. (et).

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FOOTBALL BETTING : Crabtree's base deal: six years, $32 million

Football Betting

In the wake of the news that the 49ers have signed receiver Michael Crabtree after an extended holdout, there has been not a hint of the dollars to be paid to Crabtree.

And since this means that his agent hasn't leaked the numbers, it means that his agent feels no specific motivation to do so.

Possibly because his agent isn't all that thrilled to have his name on the deal.

So the numbers will come from sources other than Crabtree's agent. And we've gotten our mitts into them.

Per a league source, Crabtree has signed a six-year, $32 million contract. (The total includes guaranteed money, base salaries, and the one-time incentive based on achieving minimum playing time.)

The deal also includes $17 million in guaranteed money.

As reported elsewhere, the deal can void to five years based on performance triggers, wiping out a final year base salary of $4 million. But they won't be easily reached.

The source tells us that, in his first four seasons (including 2009), Crabtree must either qualify for two Pro Bowls, or he must qualify for one Pro Bowl in one year and he must participate in 80 percent of the offensive snaps in a separate year in which the team makes the playoffs.

In other words, if in 2010 he qualifies for the Pro Bowl and the team makes the playoffs and he participates in 80 percent of the snaps, he'll still need to make it to the Pro Bowl or achieve the 80-percent/playoffs in another season.

Since the chances of Crabtree making the Pro Bowl or participating in 80 percent of the offensive snaps this year is roughly zero percent, he'll have three years to get it done.

And it won't be easy. Frankly, he'll be hard pressed to make it to one Pro Bowl in three years with the likes of Larry Fitzgerald, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin, Steve Smith, the other Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, DeSean Jackson, Johnny Knox, Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings, Roddy White, T.J. Houshmandzadeh in the same conference for sportsbook betting.

So, by all appearances, it's a six-year deal. And at $17 million in guaranteed money, the per-year guarantee is a tepid $2.83 million per year.

There's another problem with the deal -- it has no mid-tier incentive package. Instead, the additional $8 million that Crabtree can earn (pushing the max value to six years, $40 million) requires the kind of unrealistic, mega-star performances that no rookie is likely to ever achieve.

So while the contract paid to Packers defensive tackle B.J. Raji covers five years and pays $22.5 million, he has the ability (if he's a solid player) to make up the difference between his base deal and Crabtree's five-year, $28 million haul via the mid-tier incentive package in Raji's deal.

And unless Crabtree meets the performance thresholds necessary to void the sixth year, he'll be stuck under contract for another year at a base salary of only $4 million.

There's one other area of concern with the deal. Crabtree, per the source, received no option bonus. Instead, he has significant money tied to a fairly new device known as a "discretionary salary advance," which unlike an opition bonus is subject to forfeiture if Crabtree decides in a year or two that he wants to hold out for a better deal. (We're also told that the 49ers have included language that would make certain escalators subject to forfeiture, too.)

Meanwhile, the deal falls well short of the mark for which Crabtree and agent Eugene Parker were aiming -- the five-year, $38.25 million contract paid by the Raiders to receiver Darrius Heyward-Bey, the seventh overall pick in the draft.

Even if Crabtree successfully voids the final year, he'll make more than $2 million per year less on average than Heyward-Bey.

Thus, as we explained earlier in the day, this is a deal that Crabtree could have done in July, which would have given him a much better chance of making a contribution to the 49ers during his rookie year.

So while the final outcome can be described as win-win, the broader view suggests that it's really a lose-lose situation.

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