INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Better Talk Now, winner of the Breeders' Cup Turf and solid favorite for the $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup on Saturday, is owned by Bushwood Stable - three guys with law degrees and a collectively bent sense of humor.

They got the name from Bushwood Country Club, the legendary setting of the greatest sports movie ever made (sorry "Seabiscuit"). That's right, folks, the best older grass horse in North America carries with him at all times the inspirational wisdom of the 1980 cinema classic, "Caddyshack."

"Wanna make 14 dollars the hard way."

TUCSON, Ariz. - The elite troops of American racing descend on Tucson next week for the annual orgy of oratory, the four-day Racing Symposium sponsored by the Race Track Industry Program of the University of Arizona. It is the largest ecumenical gathering in the sport in America.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - In theory, they all had a shot. The ground was good. The weights were fair. And the starting gates all opened at the same time. But as far as the Hollywood Park Turf Festival was concerned, if your name wasn't Frankel, Bailey, or Pletcher, you were pretty much out of luck.

In what might turn out to be a budding franchise rivalry - one that only true racing nerds can love - national money-leaders Todd Pletcher and Bobby Frankel traded blows like scrappy middleweights over the holiday weekend until the ref finally stepped in to break it up.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Oh, man. Where to begin? The half-million-dollar Hollywood Derby on Sunday looks like that other 1 1/4-mile derby run on the first Saturday in May. Contenders all over the dartboard, hailing from strange corners of the racing world, converging for about two minutes of desperate exercise.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Stewart Elliott sponged off after winning the first race at Aqueduct on Thursday and picked up a holiday phone call from the other coast. He was asked if he had anything in particular to be thankful for, other than the fact that he had just won the first race at Aqueduct.

Elliott could only laugh. "How about the whole year?" he replied.

NEW YORK - The Cigar Mile at Aqueduct Saturday, the last Grade 1 race in New York until the Wood Memorial April 9, has attracted an entertaining field of high quality. The question is whether the Cigar outcome deserves to have any bearing on the Eclipse Award for champion sprinter.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - The nation's other leading trainer will be well represented in California during the holiday weekend, when Ocean Drive, Paddy's Daisy, and Dubleo go forth in various Hollywood Park Autumn Turf Festival races for the stable of Todd Pletcher.

Now known as "Texas Todd" in light of his two-winner day at the Lone Star Breeders' Cup, Pletcher hopes to pad his lead over Bobby Frankel in the only standings that truly mean anything to modern American sports: money. Through Tuesday, about a million dollars in earnings separated the two mega-barns.

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Much as he would like to reach around and pound himself on the back, Ron Ellis is deferring all credit for Declan's Moon until the day the trainer has to break a serious sweat.

"It really wasn't that stressful," Ellis confessed Monday morning. "I couldn't believe it was all working out just like I wanted it to."

INGLEWOOD, Calif. - It is Colonial Cup time again, with the cream of the steeplechase world convening on Sunday near the South Carolina town of Camden. The Eclipse Award is on the line, along with the bragging rights that go along with winning the most famous jump event on the North American calendar.

NEW YORK - By the time you read this, Steve Asmussen may already have broken Jack Van Berg's record of 496 victories by a trainer in one year. As of Friday morning, Asmussen was up to 490 winners from 2006 starters in the first 322 days of the year - an average of 1.5 winners from 6.2 starters every single day of 2004, a pace that should have him over the 500 mark before December.