ECLIPSE COULD BE ALL TALK.

Byline: KEVIN MODESTI Horse Racing 

INGLEWOOD - Better Talk Now, bidding for a national championship this weekend at Hollywood Park, is a ``good-feeling horse,'' according to the people who know him best.

``Good-feeling horse'' is one of the finest euphemisms in sports. You walk away from a ``good-feeling horse'' taking inventory of your fingers and ears.

``He bucks, squeals and 'talks' all the time,'' said Fenella O'Flynn, the traveling exercise rider for Better Talk Now. ``If he didn't do that, you'd think something's wrong. He's got a great character. He can also bite and kick. But not in a mean way.''

No matter how well-intentioned, a bite is a bite.

``He's got a cheeky look on his face all the time,'' said Anita Motion, trainer Graham Motion's wife. ``When he gets excited, he's a little naughtier. He's got quite a karate kick. He's a tiny horse, but his legs are extremely long. If he wants to (kick) you, he'll get you.''

Anita Motion has been carrying tooth marks since October, when Better Talk Now bit the arm that fed him.

Graham Motion added: ``He's a little cantankerous.''

The trainer has been monitoring the 5-year-old gelding's mood since Oct. 30, the day Better Talk Now and jockey Ramon Dominguez won the $2 million Breeders' Cup Turf at Lone Star Park in Texas in a 27-1 upset of Kitten's Joy.

Concluding that Better Talk Now is, uh, feeling good enough to race once more this year, Motion shipped his star from Maryland to Hollywood Park this week for Saturday's $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup.

Motion believes a victory over the eight other horses entered Thursday in the Grade I Turf Cup would give Better Talk Now a chance to outpoll the idle Kitten's Joy for the Eclipse Award honoring the outstanding turf specialist of 2004.

``He's doing so well, it would almost be a shame to put him away for the rest of the year,'' said Motion, who had expressed plans to do just that in the minutes after the trainer's first Breeders' Cup victory.

Motion, 40, a second-generation horseman from Newmarket, England, who is based at the lush Fair Hill training center in Maryland, was speaking a few paces from where Better Talk Now was munching hay in a corner stall at Richard Mandella's barn at Hollywood Park.

``It's not my nature to spout off,'' Motion said. ``Before the Breeders' Cup, I wouldn't have dreamt we'd be having this conversation. But on the facts, if he wins another Grade I, he'd have a chance to win the Eclipse Award.''

Better Talk Now and Kitten's Joy have each won two Grade I's this season. For Better Talk Now, they're the only two victories in seven starts. For Kitten's Joy, they're two of six victories in eight starts.

In a 24-race career with eight victories for Bushwood Stables, Better Talk Now has only the Breeders' Cup victory to show for his few trips west of Kentucky. The son of Talkin Man has done better on thick turf courses than on fairway-firm ones like Hollywood Park's.

But Motion reasons he has nothing to lose by trying the 1 1/2-mile Turf Cup, whose history features championship-capping victories by John Henry (1983 turf champion), Itsallgreektome (1990 turf champion) and Miss Alleged (1991 female turf champion). Better Talk Now wasn't scheduled to race again until next spring anyway.

Better Talk Now has to prove he wasn't a fluke when he won the 1 1/2-mile Breeders' Cup Turf, rallying from more than 12 lengths off the pace to prevail by 1 3/4 lengths in a rough stretch battle with Kitten's Joy and Powerscourt on rain-softened grass as the longest shot on the tote board.

After the horses crossed the wire, the Lone Star Park stewards posted the ``inquiry'' sign, then took minutes to acquit Better Talk Now of interference in the stretch.

The winner might not have run at the Breeders' Cup if Motion hadn't been going to Texas anyway with Film Maker (second in the Filly & Mare Turf) and Dance Away Capote (fifth in the Juvenile Fillies).

``They'd just changed the surface at Fair Hill, and he hadn't worked particularly well before the race,'' Motion said. ''We'd had long discussions about not even going. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't surprised he ran the race he did.''

Better Talk Now should be a solid favorite in the Turf Cup. His opponents include Bobby Frankel-trained Megahertz, a 5-year-old mare who has won at the Grade I level against her own gender, and License to Run, a Brazilian Group 1-winning 4-year-old colt making his U.S. debut. Others: Moscow Burning, the Grade II-winning 4-year-old filly; Puerto Banus, the San Luis Obispo and Sunset winner at this distance; and Habaneros, the recent Carleton F. Burke-winning 5-year-old gelding.

On Thursday morning, O'Flynn took Better Talk Now out for a gallop, his first tour of the Hollywood Park turf course. The Motions watched from the backstretch as the brown horse with the star on his forehead completed a relaxed lap.

``It's nice to see him doing it so quietly,'' Anita Motion said. ``No silly stuff.''