Better Talk Now to scratch from United Nations

Better Talk Now, the multiple Grade 1 winning 10-year-old gelding, will scratch out of Saturday's Grade 1 United Nations Handicap at Monmouth Park after injuring a splint bone in a hind leg, trainer Graham Motion said.

"I don't know that it's that serious, it's just enough to stop him from running tomorrow," Motion said Friday afternoon. "I don't want to run him if he's not 100 percent."

Motion said there was a "slim window" that Better Talk Now could run back in the Grade 1 Man o' War at Belmont next Saturday, but the more likely scenario is that he would make his next start in the Sword Dancer at Saratoga on Aug. 15.

Motion said he noticed a little inflammation in Better Talk Now's hind leg after training Thursday. Motion said Better Talk Now did gallop on Friday at Fair Hill.

In 2004, the same year Better Talk Now won the Breeders' Cup Turf, he also won the Sword Dancer. In 2005, he won the United Nations at Monmouth and the Man o' War at Belmont when that race was held in the fall of the year.

For his career, Better Talk Now has won 14 of 50 starts and $4.2 million.