The Kentucky Derby For The Amateur Horse Race Fan | Everything ...

The Kentucky Derby takes place every year on its traditional date of the first Saturday in May. This is a race that many people follow and try to handicap even if they?re not typically horse racing enthusiasts. Understanding race horses is hard work, and a discipline unto itself.

A true fluency in horse racing takes extensive study, but here are a few concepts that can help anyone better understand and enjoy the Kentucky Derby. Until recently, the Derby was a race dominated by the favorite. Since Spectacular Bid won the Derby in 1979, however, you can count the favorites who?ve won the race on one hand with fingers left over. In other words, the easiest way to pare down the field for a horse racing novice is to simply eliminate the popular favorite from consideration.

There are a variety of theories behind the poor performance of favorites in the Kentucky Derby of late. One is that the hype surrounding the race has attracted so many mainstream fans who are prone to back the horse with the most media hype. Unfortunately, the most hyped horse is seldom the best horse.

Don?t forget to pay attention to the starting position of the horses, known as ?post position? in racing slang. The historical data suggests that a Derby winner is most likely to come from positions 1 through 5, while the outer positions (11 through 20) have produced relatively few winners. This is something of an over simplification, but for the purpose of understanding a single race it won?t hurt to just rule out all horses starting in a bad position.

Another factor worthy of consideration is the horses lineage and breeding. Start at the beginning?where the horse was born. Most, but not all, serious racehorses are born in Kentucky. If you see a horse in the race that wasnt, forget them. This is not any sort of home field advantage but a result of the concentration of the Thoroughbred horse industry in the state. Over 80% of Kentucky Derby winners have been born in Kentucky. Next, consider the horses gender, or more specifically dont consider any entry with a gender other than male. Only eleven horses other than intact males have ever won the race (eight geldings and three fillies). A gelding did win as recently as 2003, when Funny Cide took the roses but again for the newcomer this is an easy way to cut down the horses under consideration. This isnt a gender bias or anything, but for our purposes we can forget about non-male horses.

Dosage index numbers have also taken on a great deal of significance in recent years. What are dosage numbers you ask? I have no clue, beyond the fact that theyre a complex mathematical measurement that reflects the quality of the horses family tree, as well as his performance as a two-year-old. The conventional wisdom is that horses with a dosage index over 4.00 are not supposed to be competitive at the long 1 mile distance. This isnt always the case, of course, but for the dilettante its a good factor to consider. Since 1984 (when dosage systems first came into vogue), the winners of nine Derby races were dosage system selections.

These are just a few steps that will serve you well if you dont know much about horses. Again, if you want to take a more serious approach to understanding horse racing you should look into the many books dedicated to the subject. For a recreational horse race enthusiast, however, these basic rules are helpful in trying to predict the Derby winner.

Ross Everett is a freelance sports writer and highly respected authority on World Cup betting. His writing has appeared on a variety of sports sites including sports news and sportsbook directory sites. He lives in Las Vegas with three Jack Russell Terriers and a kangaroo. He is currently working on an autobiography of former interior secretary James Watt.

categories: horse racing,gambling,sports,entertainment,recreation,hobbies,travel,leisure,animals,reference

Share

REPUBLISHING THIS ARTICLE: (Under Creative Commons License: Attribution)
We encourage any article on this site to be republished which promotes information exchange, creativity and author promotion. This website leverages a simple but automatic license attribute inclusion to any copy and paste action (Right Click Mouse) and any copied content has a backlink associated to the relevant article/information on our website (www.freearticlezines.com). We insist that you DO NOT remove our associated backlink to the original article for republished content. Please enjoy the content, just use copy/paste, author credit has never been easier!

Source: http://www.freearticlezines.com/2012/02/the-basics-of-the-kentucky-derby-for-horse-racing-beginners/

stratfor bears vs packers after christmas sales 2011 tyson chandler tyson chandler best ipad apps chris paul

Federal Air Marshals claim unfair work environment (AP)

[unable to retrieve full-text content]AP - Some senior officials at the Federal Air Marshal service made fun of veterans, homosexuals and minorities, creating what employees described as an unpleasant work environment at an agency with a mission that requires operating mostly under the radar, government investigators found.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120209/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_air_marshals_discrimination_complaints

happy veterans day brian eno tomb of the unknown soldier tomb of the unknown soldier reo reo chilis

Elderly Kenyans threaten UK colonial abuse lawsuit (AP)

NAIROBI, Kenya ? Thousands of elderly Kenyans are preparing to sue the British government over abuses ? including torture, illegal detentions and rape ? its forces allegedly committed during its suppression of a 1950s anti-colonial rebellion, a lawyer representing the group said Wednesday.

The group of Kenyans is motivated by the progress of a case by four other elderly Kenyans, who were given the go-ahead by a British court last year to sue the U.K. government for alleged abuses during its colonial occupation of Kenya, said lawyer Donald Rabala.

The British government had tried to have the case by the four thrown out, saying it could not be held legally responsible for the long-ago abuses. It argues that all the powers and liabilities of the colonial administration passed to the Kenyan government on independence in 1963.

Rabala said his firm has taken statements from more than 6,000 people who claim to have either been tortured, detained illegally, raped, forcefully displaced from their land, among other abuses.

Rabala said his firm, with the help of a U.K. law firm, is collecting more statements from Kenyans allegedly held by the British in detention camps after a 1952 uprising led by a militia group known as the Mau Mau. Britain imposed a state of emergency that lasted until 1959.

"The victims know some of the names of those who raped them, tortured them. They have scars and some have documents showing when they were incarcerated and where," Rabala said.

He said he expects the British government to settle the case out of court because if it goes to trial it will consume a lot of time and taxpayer money.

During the uprising in 1952, Prime Minister Winston Churchill sent British soldiers to help colonial administrators capture the Mau Mau fighters and send them to detention camps. African soldiers under the King's African Rifles regiment also took part in the assault on the Mau Mau and their supporters.

President Barack Obama's grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was one of thousands of Kenyans detained. Obama's grandfather died in 1979.

Among the 6,000 planning to sue is the wife of Dedan Kimathi, one of the most Mau Mau's most revered, Rabala said. British fighters arrested and hanged Kimathi. He has since been honored by the Kenyan government as a national hero.

His widow, Mukami Kimathi, was incarcerated by the British, according to Rabala, though he declined to go into the details of what she experienced during her detention.

The new potential cases were inspired by a ruling by British High Court Judge Richard McCombe, who last July found that the four Kenyans "have arguable cases in law," and their suits can go ahead.

Britain's Africa Minister Henry Bellingham said at the time that the government would continue to fight the claim, "given the length of time elapsed and the complex legal and constitutional questions the case raises."

He said Britain understood "the pain and grievance felt by those, on all sides, who were involved in the divisive and bloody events of the Emergency period in Kenya."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/europe/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120208/ap_on_re_af/af_kenya_britain

2012 nfl mock draft iowa caucus lemonade diet dick clark steve jobs action figure chris jericho rose bowl

Aurora extravaganza glows in space

Time-lapse video from the International Space Station on Jan. 29. These sequences of frames were taken at the rate of one frame per second. The pace is close to the true speed of the International Space Station.

By Alan Boyle

Colorful videos prove that the astronauts on the International Space Station had the best seats in the house during last month's flare-up of auroral activity.

NASA's Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth is offering a whole new batch of time-lapse videos from the Jan. 25-30 period, when an active region on the sun was blasting out a healthy dose of electrically charged particles and lighting up Earth's upper atmosphere.

---

These latest videos are notable because they're assembled from still pictures that were taken at?a rate of one frame per second. As a result, the pace of the videos is a near match for the true speed of the space station as it makes its 90-minute orbit around our planet.

The video above documents a minute of flight heading east from the Pacific over the Canadian West Coast, heading toward southern Alberta near Calgary. I love watching the ripples and flashes of the green aurora over Canada?? seasoned with a dash of red from the atomic oxygen that exists at higher altitudes. Why is there red as well as green in the aurora? We've addressed that question before, but this Aurora FAQ from the University of Alaska provides a quick explanation.

Here are a couple more videos, tracking the space station's flight over the U.S. East Coast as well as central North America. But you don't have to stop here. Visit NASA's Gateway, which offers still photos from the space station in addition to the videos, and check out the YouTube channel for NASA Crew Earth Observations. My favorite places for space imagery also include the Fragile Oasis Facebook page, NASA astronaut Ron Garan's Google+ page and Jason Major's Lights in the Dark blog.

This video was taken from the International Space Station on Jan. 29 during a pass from just southwest of Mexico to the North Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Newfoundland. As the space station travels northeast over the Gulf of Mexico, you can see New Orleans, Mobile, Jacksonville and Atlanta. Continuing up the East Coast, the cities of Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City stand out brightly. The northern lights shine in the background as the pass finishes near Newfoundland.

This video was taken from the International Space Station on Jan. 26 during a pass from North Dakota to central Quebec. The northern lights can be seen near the space station, with small patches of the green auroral light dancing around.

If auroras, atmospheric phenomena and solar activity are your thing, you can't do much better than SpaceWeather.com, which is keeping track of lovely aurora pictures like this one from Chad Blakley at Abisko National Park in Sweden. Be sure to check out Blakley's Lights Over Lapland website while you're at it.

Chad Blakley / Lights Over Lapland

Photographer Chad Blakley captured this view of the northern lights over Sweden's Abisko National Park on Feb. 6. "The lights started around 6:00 p.m. and continued into the very early hours of the morning," Blakley told SpaceWeather.com. Check out Blakley's gallery on SpaceWeather.com for still more stunning views.

AuroraMAX / CSA

The rippling northern lights share the skies with a nearly full moon over Yellowknife in Canada's Northern Territories early today, as seen by the Canadian Space Agency's AuroraMAX wide-angle camera. To keep on top of northern Canada's aurora extravaganza, check the AuroraMAX website and Twitpic account.

More auroral glories:

---

Alan Boyle is msnbc.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter or adding Cosmic Log's Google+ page to your circle. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for other worlds.

Source: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/07/10344463-aurora-extravaganza-glows-in-space

arizona diamondbacks alex rodriguez alicia witt alicia witt nobel peace prize verizon wireless oregon ducks football

Time Warner 4Q earnings edge up, beats Street (AP)

NEW YORK ? Time Warner Inc. said Wednesday that its fourth-quarter net income grew slightly as revenue jumped 5 percent on strong performances at its Warner Bros. movie studio and its cable television networks.

Its adjusted earnings topped Wall Street expectations, and the company forecast growth for 2012 that would beat analysts' current forecasts. Time Warner also raised its dividend by 11 percent and said it plans to expand a stock buyback program.

Its shares rose $1.19, or 3.1 percent, to $39.29 in premarket trading.

Net income rose to $773 million, or 76 cents per share, for the last three months of 2011 compared with $769 million, or 68 cents per share, a year earlier.

Adjusted for one-time items, the company earned 94 cents per share. That beat Wall Street's expectations of 87 cents per share, according to a survey by FactSet.

Time Warner forecast growth in adjusted earnings in the low double-digit percentages. Adjusted income was $2.89 last year, meaning it could range from $3.18 to $3.32 in 2012. Analysts were expecting $3.16.

Revenue grew to $8.2 billion from $7.8 billion a year ago and beat analysts' expectations for $8.06 billion.

Revenue in the television business grew 5 percent to $3.5 billion. The company saw a 16 percent increase in content revenue, particularly from stronger licensing revenue at Turner networks such as TBS, and a 5 percent increase in subscription revenue at channels such as HBO. Advertising revenue increased more modestly, at 2 percent.

Warner Bros. revenue grew 7 percent to $3.9 billion on stronger home entertainment and video game releases and new subscription video-on-demand agreements. That was offset partly by lower revenue from theatrical releases and television licensing fees.

Revenue at the Time Inc. publishing division fell 1 percent $1 billion.

Time Warner Inc. also says it will raise its quarterly dividend to 26 cents per share, to be paid March 15 to shareholders of record on Feb. 29.

The company also announced plans to buy back up to $4 billion in stock, on top of the nearly $5 billion it had already repurchased since the beginning of 2011. Buybacks boost the company's stock price by concentrating profits among fewer outstanding shares.

In a statement, CEO Jeff Bewkes said both decisions reflect "our confidence and our continued commitment to strong shareholder returns."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/business/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120208/ap_on_hi_te/us_earns_time_warner

chris carpenter the brothers grimm the brothers grimm grimm fairy tales grimm fairy tales gold rush gold rush

X1 Pro 7 (beta)

The productivity software X1 Pro 7 (free while it's in beta) pulls together your social networks, email clients, and local files into one mega inbox. Picture it! One application. One dashboard. All the vital activity and data from Outlook, Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, AOL, IMAP, and even your desktop files. All indexed and searchable.

X1 Pro 7 delivers well on its promise to merge all these programs into one location where you can interact with them, ultimately helping you increase your productivity because you're no longer switching between various apps. However, I wonder if X1 Pro 7 goes too far on a conceptual level. Isn't a personal computer the place where all these things are already merged?

For certain classifications of software, I see how an app aggregator might make sense, something like TweetDeck (4 stars) or Seesmic Desktop 2 (3 stars), which focus almost exclusively on social networking and don't try to lump in file management, personal email, and business email. Don't get me wrong. X1 Pro 7 works very well, and some of its features seem to have been born of real consideration for how people generally interact with data and content. The question is whether it can improve your productivity, or if it goes too far in replicating what the personal computer and modern operating systems already accomplish.

What Can X1 Pro 7 Do?
You can download X1 Pro 7 for computers running Windows XP or later at no cost while the product is still in beta in exchange for your email address. Small and quick to download and install, the app can be up and ready to configure in just a minute or two.

To get started, you have to tell X1 Pro 7 what applications it can use. The full list of what's available is: AOL, Facebook, files, Gmail, IMAP, Lotus Notes, Outlook, Twitter, and Yahoo! mail. I had no trouble authenticating Outlook (although it had to be closed during installation) and Yahoo! mail, but it took me two tries to connect with Facebook and Twitter. Connecting with these social apps is similar to setting up any other third-party interaction with them, wherein you must validate the connection on the site (i.e., tell Facebook you allow the app and grant the permissions it requests).

When running, X1 Pro 7 looks remarkably similar to many email clients. There is a left pane listing the applications that you've added, a central pane showing line items of activity, and a preview pane that can appear either at right, left, or below. Each application name in the left pane can expand and collapse to show more or less information about what it contains. For example, the Outlook listing expands to show Email, Contacts, Calendar, Tasks, Notes. Additional subdirectories are likewise expandable and collapsible: Email opens to Inbox, Sent Items, and Attachments.

You can configure exactly which folders within your email system X1 Pro 7 will index, so for example, you might allow it to pull information from Gmail, but only the inbox and a folder called "Work-related" if you were using the app for business purposes. You might not want to be distracted by other matters.

X1 Pro 7 also gives you very good and precise control over how often the app indexes from the various apps it's aggregating. Productivity enthusiasts will appreciate the ability to restrict incoming emails from hitting your X1 Pro inbox more than once an hour?email is typically seen as a major distraction and productivity killer.

An "Everything" option at the very top of the left pane shows all the activity from all the allowed apps. For me, the Everything button flooded my list with too much activity, arresting my ability to focus on the essential tasks while culling out the inessential ones. Plus, you can't search "everything" at once; rather, searches are only possible app-by-app, although searching is fast, thorough, and efficient. The Everything view could be useful for people whose jobs require them to respond to social media activity and email with equal weight, like social media strategists, but the average office employee may be overwhelmed.

As mentioned, X1 Pro 7 can index your computer files, and it works similar to email in that you can configure it to index only selected directories or folders. The controls are super intuitive for strong computer users, but equally simple to understand for those who are less technically adept, with good and clear explanations offering guidance.

The Utility is the Thing
The least productive thing?in my opinion?about X1 Pro 7 is that it replicates email. On the one hand, the app does an extraordinarily good job of understanding how most people use email, and extending that concept to other areas of personal computing. On the other hand, I am personally not a proponent of the "email way", and would rather see a tool that does the exact opposite: lets people reach email's ends (fast, asynchronous communication) without email's means (the inbox, read versus unread messages, etc.).

Ironically, one feature I like most in X1 Pro 7 is how it displays the content of URLs shared through Facebook and Twitter (see the slideshow for an example) as if they were emails. The preview pane displays the actual Web page of the link. The "email inbox" way of thinking may be of value after all, but perhaps not in the way I or most people might expect.

Productive for Whom?
X1 Pro 7, which is still technically in beta, is well worth trying if you're tired of or frustrated with the limitations of some other aggregator apps. Its ability to merge social networking with personal Web-based email, business email clients, and file-management does give it some robust capabilities over other desktop clients. However, some users will not see the utility of X1 Pro 7, as it doesn't do anything that your computer can't already do?except enable it from one central dashboard and give you the ability to cull out some folders/directories ahead of time. And still others will see its email-like design as antithetical to productivity.

For more productivity and organizational tips, see our weekly Get Organized series of articles and videos.

More Productivity Software Reviews:
??? X1 Pro 7 (beta)
??? Apple iCloud
??? Dragon Dictation (for iPhone)
??? Alfred (for Mac)
??? Click.to
?? more

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/ziffdavis/pcmag/~3/s_RNK-b9iFg/0,2817,2399895,00.asp

shroud of turin barkley beltran space ball jim mora the weeknd echoes of silence gio gonzalez

How Proprietary Trading Organizations Allow You To Develop A ...

Because of the quite encouraging future that a proprietary trading business can promise just about every serious ambitious trader, a lot of people are quite interested in learning the business enterprise: how it operates, how you can endure it along with tips on how to succeed. They seek sufficient education in order for them to get started with their stock trading professions. Prop trading businesses are aware of this public demand and acknowledge it by providing aspiring investors the education they will need by means of short term training, seminars and on line classes.

Proprietary trading firms supply education via short courses of about 4 to six months which cover on the web stock trading and rio de janeiro real estate if the aspiring investor wishes to work for individuals who?ve enough money to invest in the business; online day trading, if they would like to create their careers as home based self-directed traders and the various trading methods that they require not simply in order for them so survive but to also excel inside the marketplace and maintain a consistently fantastic performance.

Prop trading firms would best have the ability to helping you create a good fortune when you enroll to their brief term rio de janeiro real estate investing or day trading courses in which you are not only given lectures on what the small business is all about but you are also supplied with an in-house coaching program with their competent investors. They can also assist you to produce a good fortune should you be one of those individuals who would like to create home based real estate investing or day trading careers and wishes to discover the company at home by obtaining their on-line classes. Besides educational video presentations, you might also be provided with printable modules and downloadable trading software programmed using the very best on line daytrading methods to help you endure your house organization.

Should you know several points about the business and would only want little enhancements from knowledgeable traders, prop trading firms can enable you to create a good fortune by way of their quite educational and motivational seminars not just for on line day trading and stock trading but in all other kinds of investing such as a rio de janeiro real estate enterprise.

A lot of trading organizations lately no longer just focus on the trading business to make dollars. In addition, they engage in helping ambitious traders develop their good fortune by educating them and providing them with guidelines according to their real trading knowledge. The 1 factor aspiring traders like you must know before you get into the market is the fact that you may in no way succeed with no education and functional experience.

Come and join a prop trading institution that will help you to become a improved stock trader. Also take into account studying about rio apartments for sale investment

Tags: loans, your own business

Posted in Loans

Source: http://www.loansticker.com/2012/02/07/how-proprietary-trading-organizations-allow-you-to-develop-a-profit/

music awards giants eagles bcs rankings week 13 bcs rankings week 13 philadelphia marathon rhodes scholar cranberry sauce recipe