No Respect, Plenty of Wins

Better Talk Now Has Won the Breeders' Cup Turf Before

The three friends who formed Bushwood Stables named their racing partnership after the country club in the film comedy "Caddyshack." Fittingly, the horse they're sending to the post Saturday for the $3 million Breeders' Cup Turf is without a doubt the Rodney Dangerfield of the thoroughbred world championships at Churchill Downs.

Dismissed at odds of 20-1 for the race in the Daily Racing Form's morning line, 7-year-old gelding Better Talk Now gets no respect.

Yet, of the 121 horses pre-entered in the eight Breeders' Cup races, only five have won more money than Better Talk Now, who has earned $2,953,141. Slightly built but a relentless closer best at the Breeders' Cup Turf's 1 1/2 -mile distance, he has run in a remarkable 24 straight stakes races dating from June 2003; 11 of his past 15 starts have come in top class Grade I events, four of which he has won, including the Breeders' Cup Turf in 2004 at odds of 27-1.

He scored in his most recent start, the Grade II Sky Classic at Woodbine in Canada, and his trainer, Graham Motion, says if Better Talk Now wins a second Breeders' Cup race, the horse will go down as one of the greats.

Yet Better Talk Now rarely is lauded by the racing industry media and doesn't exactly quicken the pulse of the fans, either.

"I think great is a term that is ridiculously overused, probably in horse racing more than any other sport," said Daily Racing Form lead handicapper Mike Watchmaker. "Secretariat was a truly great horse. Spectacular Bid was a great horse.

"Better Talk Now can run the best race he's run this year and be nowhere in the Breeders' Cup Turf. When he won the Breeders' Cup Turf two years ago, if I'm not mistaken, he was 27-1. To my way of thinking, he was in better form then. His races this year seem to suggest he's lost a couple steps, and you can't do that and expect to compete at this level."

The Bushwood partners have assuaged some of their frustration with Better Talk Now's lack of accolades by building him a corny Myspace.com Web page, which lists Paris Hilton, Jessica Simpson, Diddy and Barry Manilow as among the horse's "friends."

Using the first person, the site says, "Hello -- I am one of the best distance turf horses of the past decade."

"I hate to make it sound like it's a disappointing experience. He's done so much more for us than we ever hoped he could do, but the one thing that's a little bit frustrating is he doesn't seem to be recognized for what's he's achieved on the racetrack," said Bushwood managing partner Brent Johnson, an investment adviser and racing fanatic from Oakton, who formed Bushwood with Karl Barth, a boyhood pal from Falls Church, and law school classmate Chris Dwyer of Chicago.

Part of the reason, Johnson suggests, may be the trainer. Motion is a thoughtful and gentlemanly 42-year-old from Cambridge, England, who operates his stable in the relative quiet of the Fair Hill Training Center in Maryland, away from the spotlight of the California, Kentucky and New York racing circuits.

Motion points his best horses toward the prestigious Keeneland and Saratoga race meets, but he's not a steady presence at those tracks.