LAS VEGAS – This NFL season has had more twists and turns than any in recent memory – and I’m not even going to bring up all the off-the-field drama.

I’m talking about how confusing it has been for oddsmakers and bettors alike. We started the season thinking that the Cowboys and Vikings were among the top Super Bowl contenders, and every time a new team has been anointed as the league’s best (such as the Steelers, Colts, Packers, Patriots, and Giants), they have invariably stubbed their toe and are not even sure of making it to the playoffs as we sit here in Week 12.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – It was a tall order, facing many of the best middle-distance grass runners the Breeders’ Cup could muster. But there he was, the lone California-bred in the field, unimpressed and undaunted to the end. The fact that The Usual Q. T. finished third in the Breeders’ Cup Mile, beaten only by Goldikova and Gio Ponti, gave renewed solace to the notion that a good horse can come from anywhere, and that the accomplishments of this particular good horse looked even better in the wake of his performance at Churchill Downs.

Who says MySpace is dead? Kristin Mulhall might not be running Westwood Pride in the $250,000 Matriarch on Friday at Hollywood Park if website designers Rustin and Juliana Kretz hadn’t come across the trainer’s page on the Avis of social networks.

Seth Hancock, whose family has owned and operated Claiborne Farm for a century, has the dubious honor of having being portrayed fictionally twice in recent weeks.

The first was an inaccurate depiction in the movie “Secretariat,” which opened last month. In the Hollywood version, Hancock was the greenhorn who was unable to sell a single stallion share in Secretariat until Penny Chenery (Diane Lane) sweet-talked Ogden Phipps (James Cameron) after everyone else had turned them down. In reality, Phipps was the first person to sign up and shares were sold out within four days.

On a three-acre patch of Texas ranchland, just south of the city of Austin, a 6-year-old son of Worldly Manner named Spot the Diplomat has found a home with the family of Grant and Greta Hays.

Funny where horses end up. Funny what they end up doing.

Spot the Diplomat was a real racehorse. He won three of his first four starts, including two small stakes at Del Mar, finished third in the 2006 Norfolk Stakes at Santa Anita, and was favored in the California Cup Juvenile.

Well dang, I didn’t see that coming.

Just when she was getting warmed up, they go and pull the plug on Zenyatta. I mean, what has she done for us lately? And anyway, she didn’t look any different that night after the Breeders’ Cup Classic than she did after the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Classic, or the 2010 Santa Margarita, or the 2008, 2009, and 2010 versions of the Vanity Handicap, the Clement Hirsch or the Lady’s Secret, or – well, you get the idea.

We are 10 weeks into the NFL season and the bye weeks are behind us.

With every team having played exactly nine games (heading into Thursday’s game between the Bears and Dolphins), it’s a good time to check how teams are faring against the spread with our annual ATS Standings. This usually shows how teams are exceeding or falling short of expectations.

TUCSON – The death sentence arrived in a terse, four-paragraph release with an appropriate dateline of Atlantic City, and carried all the lethal impact that thousands of people who make their living in harness racing in New Jersey had feared.

Thoroughbred horsemen fared little better, as they will soon discover.

The word was that Chris Christie, who campaigned last year for money and votes for governor of the state with promises that he understood the problems of horse racing, had his chief executioner for racing, Jon Hanson, pull the switch.

Goldikova’s electrifying run through the Churchill Downs stretch last Saturday confirmed the belief that there is no other Thoroughbred in training quite like her. This was the third time in three years she had set the Breeders’ Cup alight, and each time she did it her way, displaying a turn of foot not seen since Miesque captured two consecutive Breeders’ Cup Mile titles in 1987 and 1988. A year from now, Goldikova will pursue a fourth Mile title long before any other horse can attempt to match her achievement of three Cup titles, barring the return of Zenyatta.

The Breeders’ Cup was a rousing success here in Las Vegas last weekend – well, except for those whose emotional or financial investments were tied to Zenyatta.

But even those who left disappointed were left with lots of excitement. No one could say they didn’t get their money’s worth.