NEW YORK - Two very different types of robotic betting led the parimutuel news this past week, each illustrating the fragility and inadequacy of the wagering machinery that fuels the $15 billion annual wagering handle that drives Thoroughbred racing.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - You know it's the quiet time of the year when New Mexico makes national racing news twice in a week.

First came the announcement that the Penn National Gaming group of racetrack/casinos had agreed to purchase the Zia Park and Black Gold Casino complex, located in the eastern New Mexico town of Hobbs, from a partnership that includes former Hollywood Park owner R.D. Hubbard. The price is $200 million.

TUCSON, Ariz. - He is not the classic Western gunman type, and never will be cast as John Wayne, nor mistaken for him.

But despite his demeanor - Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, describes him as "a political maverick with a low-key persona" - Ohio's senior U.S. senator, Republican George Voinovich, turned out to be a cold-blooded political killer last week.

NEW YORK - Was Breeders' Cup Day successful by the numbers? That all depends on whether you're more excited by the 15 percent spike in commingled betting handle or disheartened by the 53 percent decline in television ratings.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - There are those of us among racing fans who go cross-eyed with boredom this time each year, as the horse traders and middle men seize center stage to buy and sell, or retire and syndicate, the grand athletes that only until recently had been performing for our pleasure.

WASHINGTON – Invasor clinched the horse of the year title by upsetting Bernardini, and the 2-year-old Street Sense stamped himself as a star of the future with a 10-length runaway at Churchill Downs. But it is possible that neither of these performances will be remembered as the defining event of the Breeders' Cup World Championships. Saturday's races may have accelerated the adoption of synthetic surfaces at American tracks.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The gang that gathered at the Galt House bar early last Saturday evening had bragging rights on two of the eight Breeders' Cup races freshly run at Churchill Downs. They were giddy and ready for a night on the town, in this case Louisville, with its charms spread out before them for the taking. So what did they do?

Hung around the bar and watched the eighth from Hollywood, what else?

NEW YORK - All nine of racing's divisional championships were up for grabs at the Breeders' Cup last Saturday, and it appears that the events of the day settled seven of them while throwing two others into complete disarray. If the ballots were due today instead of seven weeks hence, here's how the equine Eclipses would probably be awarded:

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - There was a point in time and space, last Saturday at Churchill Downs, when everything anyone needed to know about winning and losing on Breeders' Cup Day was condensed into a single encounter.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Michael Matz knelt in the deep straw bedding of stall number four, Barn 43, and picked at the small nick below the bulb of the right front ankle of Round Pond, winner of the Breeders' Cup Distaff barely two hours earlier.

"It's nothing, really," said Matz as he dressed and wrapped the wound with the help of two grooms. "Not when you consider."