DAT'S A WINNER!!
HURLEY & CLIENTS MAKE IT A SAINT PAYDAY!
SIDE & TOTAL SWEEP
SAINTS (+5) 31, COLTS 17
UNDER 57

No one's laughing at the Who Dat Nation anymore.

Still, who would have thought that the New Orleans Saints' heart-thumping 31-17 win over the 4 ½-point favored Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV would have been accomplished without sacking Indy QB Peyton Manning at all and with the N'Orleans offense converting just 3-of-9 third-down plays (and oh-for-1 on fourth down)?

No doubt about it:

The Saints' first-ever Super Bowl championship - following in the wake of 43 seasons of mostly misery and a little bit of heartache too - didn't follow any of the scripts that were ...

HANDICAPPING NOTEBOOK

WHO 'DAT WITH A SUPER BOWL TROPHY?
NEW ORLEANS CELEBRATES HUGE WIN!

by Mathew Hurley, Managing Editor

Things looked bleak for the Big Easy one quarter into Sunday evening's Super Bowl. New Orleans trailed 10-0, and was getting dominated at the point of attack. The Saints were sluggish, reminiscent of last week's struggle with Minnesota, and their earlier loss at home to Dallas. Indianapolis was grinding up yardage at their normal clip...reminding everyone of what they had just seen in the AFC Playoffs.

New Orleans won the rest of the game 31-7! That's what the Hurley Network was talking about when it released a side & total parlay on the Saints and the Under 56.5. We were convinved that if the underdog could survive its early jitters, those 5.5 points on the line would look awfully big as the game wore on. We were further convinced that both defenses were underrated ...

$5 Million Is Offered If Zenyatta & Rachel Alexandra Meet

In an attempt to bring Rachel Alexandra and Zenyatta together for the first time, Oaklawn Park in Arkansas announced Thursday that it would increase the purse of the April 3 Apple Blossom Invitational to $5 million if the two female stars competed in the race.

Neither camp has made a firm commitment to start in the Apple Blossom, but Charles Cella, Oaklawn’s president, said that he had discussed the race with the owners Jerry Moss and Jess Jackson and that both said they were enthusiastic about the idea.

“My family and I would love to see her run at Oaklawn Park,” Jackson, the owner of Rachel Alexandra, said in a statement. “If she is in top form and it fits in our schedule, we will be there. Rachel, as you know, likes the track, having won twice there last year.”

Moss, who along with his wife, Ann, owns Zenyatta, said this week that he would “love to be there,” when asked about running his champion mare in the Apple Blossom.

The $5 million purse would be the richest for a race restricted to female horses.

The distance of the race has also been changed, from a mile and a sixteenth to a mile and an eighth. The race was formerly known as the Apple Blossom Handicap, but by making it an invitational, all horses will carry the same weight. If the ...