With the running of the $150,000 Santa Maria on Saturday at Santa Anita, the age of Zenyatta is officially ended. During her three seasons in California, the big mare won 14 major races for the division – including a Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic – which pretty much eliminated the opportunities for any upwardly mobile competitors to enhance their records without fleeing the state.

Once a humble, low-level track, Tampa Bay Downs now regularly makes important racing news. On Saturday trainer Todd Pletcher’s undefeated colt Brethren runs in the $225,000 Sam F. Davis Stakes. Next month, Uncle Mo, the brilliant champion of his generation, starts his preparation for the 3-year-old classics in the Tampa Bay Derby, a race that has produced two of the last four Kentucky Derby winners.

LAS VEGAS – The confetti hadn’t stopped falling on the Packers’ celebration of their 31-25 victory over the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV when speculation started about whether it was a winning or losing day for the bookies.

The widespread opinion going into the game was that the worst-case scenario would be if the Packers covered the consensus 2 1/2-point spread and the game went over the total that had fluctuated between 44 and 46 1/2. Favorite/over is usually a lethal combo for the books in everyday wagering, but it’s magnified on an event like the Super Bowl.

If the line snaking through the east end of the paddock gardens at Santa Anita last Saturday was any indication, the name “Secretariat” still carries the whiff of magic. Young and old they gathered, to buy a poster and meet the lady herself, Penny Chenery, who at age 89 still carries the torch for her Triple Crown champion with grace and style.

“I’m a little tired, sure,” Chenery said at the end of the eventful day. “But how can you not enjoy meeting all those people who want to share how they feel about your horse.”

TUCSON, Ariz. – Voices of gloom are heard in the land.

Peter Carlino, whose Penn National Gaming is the biggest success story of the racing and gambling year, told investors and analysts last week that supporting cheap horses with inflated purses, as slots at tracks have been doing, is not his business plan and that he is not running a public charity.

Sam Huff, better known as the greatest player to wear number 70 in NFL history, was properly dazzled the first time he laid eyes on Cowboys Stadium, site of the Super Bowl on Sunday. The scope was immense, the vistas vast, and once he got over the towering scale of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders as presented on the acreage of the stadium video screen, he came back down to earth with an observation that would come natural to any man whose name is synonymous with the Thoroughbred industry of West Virginia:

Twenty years ago this week, a field of 12 older horses lined up for the 1991 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park. Then as now, it was the first Grade 1 race of the year for the nation’s top older horses, but in 1991 it was the start of something even bigger: It was the first leg of the inaugural American Championship Racing Series, a short-lived innovation that may have been ahead of its time but seems well worth revisiting now.

As precocity is not valued nearly as much in Europe as it is in America, many European trainers are content to give a promising 2-year-old a single juvenile run. If successful, the winner will be put away for the winter in the hope he might develop into a classic performer. Some of these under-the-radar types are the subject of this week’s column.

The jewel in the weekend’s crown is the $500,000 Donn Handicap at Gulfstream Park on Saturday, where I Want Revenge, Rule, Giant Oak, Square Eddie, and Fly Down mix it up at a mile and one-eighth.

About two hours after the Donn is done, 4-year-olds will tangle in the $200,000 Strub Stakes at Santa Anita, followed out West on Sunday by the $150,000 San Antonio Handicap for ages 4 and up. Both of those events are nine furlongs on the main track as well.

Everything has a price.

Of course, we all know that in the world of the race and sports books, where every horse has odds on it no matter how hopeless, and every game has a spread and the oddsmakers will drive the line high enough until either side is equally appealing for bettors. “Everything has a price” is especially true for the Super Bowl, with several proposition wagers available.

DRF SPORTS: Super Bowl odds, StatFox matchups, and handicapping news