In what did not come as a surprise to the vast majority of bettors, Rachel Alexandra won the 2009 Preakness Stakes. The confidence in her abilities was clearly well founded, and her jockey, Calvin Borel, even noted that she did not perform at her absolute best that day.

While Rachel Alexandra’s win was the expected outcome from most quarters, what may be more interesting is that Mine That Bird seems to have proven his own abilities. So many things pointed to the Kentucky Derby win as being a fluke, but Mine That Bird’s final run from behind in the Preakness Stakes closely mirrored his path to victory in the Kentucky Derby. While he didn’t take the race this time, he still managed to finish second ahead of his former Kentucky Derby competition and only a length behind Rachel Alexandra. It seems clear now that Mine That Bird is a real contender even if he isn’t exactly the greatest colt in history.

Rachel Alexandra’s win means there will be no Triple Crown winner for this year, but there is still one race left in the US Triple Crown. The Belmont Stakes will be run two weeks after the Preakness, on 6 June. We could very likely see a similar outcome in that race if Rachel Alexandra is chosen for the Belmont Stakes, but the prior threats to force her out of the Preakness could materialize this time, especially after how easily she won.

Most of the betting has yet to begin on the Belmont Stakes, as the entrants have not yet been confirmed. Nevertheless, BetUS is getting the betting started with proposition bets on jockey, Calvin Borel. Two bets are currently being offered, a bet on which horse Borel will ride in the Belmont Stakes and a bet on which horse he will win with in the Belmont Stakes. Borel has had a really excellent run of race wins this year. Can we have a human Triple Crown winner? Is that legal? Or would he have to be a three-year-old to qualify?

Well done to Rachel Alexandra, her owners, trainers and jockey, and there’ll be more news on the Belmont Stakes once we know who’s looking to run.

What on earth happened on Saturday? The favorite I Want Revenge gets scratched on Derby Day morning, Friesan Fire puts in a terrible performance to finish 18th, and a 50 to 1 shot wins the Kentucky Derby! Unbelievable, but it definitely meant that the Derby earned its title of The Most Exciting Two Minutes in Sports.

Not only did Mine That Bird win despite being at 50 to 1 odds, the gelding also scored the largest winning margin in more than 50 years and managed to win after starting out in what seemed to be an impossible position to overcome. It seems beyond belief that the race could have gone like that. Mine That Bird does not have the record to suggest this kind of a win, with two lost races without particularly strong competition. He was a late entry, too, and only got a chance due to the scratching of several other contenders.

But, as hard as it is to believe and accept, especially for the masses of people that bet on the much more likely runners, the Kentucky Derby did go that way, making for one of the biggest upsets in horse racing. Now, Mine That Bird is getting entered into the Preakness Stakes, with the trainer hinting at Triple Crown aspirations. I have pretty big doubts about that happening, as even with the Derby win, Mine That Bird has a lot to prove before his earlier races can be forgotten.

I do not envy the sportsbooks in coming up with futures odds for the Preakness Stakes or the Triple Crown. Trying to work out the odds based on Mine That Bird’s record must be incredibly frustrating. Bettors should pay close attention to the futures odds for the Preakness Stakes, as the Kentucky Derby upset could mean some strangely balanced odds at the sportsbooks.

I’m a fan of BetUS, don’t get me wrong. They’re a great online sportsbook and for that I’ve always found them to be really easy to use.

Imagine my surprise when I looked at their racebook and found a surprisingly small selection of races. I thought there had to be something wrong, why would the racebook only list a few upcoming races when BetUS handles everything else so well? I’d been reading about the Dubai World Cup coming up and was interested to find out what odds they were posting. No search function, no long term future races selection. Nothing.

I got sick of that and thought I’d check out the current MMA lines at the BetUS sportsbook. Looks like Jason “Mayhem” Miller is the favorite in his fight against Kala Hose on Saturday. Yeah, big surprise. Anyway, when looking in the sidebar for MMA, I actually noticed the horse racing section there. I hadn’t gone to this before because I figured that the BetUS racebook would be the place to go if I wanted to bet on horses. I must be thick or something, right?

It turns out that if you want to bet on the big future horse races at BetUS, you’d better look in the sportsbook as well as the racebook section. Yes, the racebook will probably list the Dubai World Cup closer to the event, but surely it’s not too hard to figure out that some bettors will want to know the kinds of odds BetUS are giving now, is it?

It’s not like I’m going to go elsewhere over this, I like BetUS for sportsbetting and I can certainly adapt to the unusual racebook section. I’d prefer to use a service I know I can rely upon rather than change my preferred sportsbook over a fairly minor matter. I just ask, for such a normally excellent site – BetUS, can you please be more intuitive in how you list your horse racing odds? Please?