INGLEWOOD, Calif. - Better Talk Now, who arrived on Tuesday for Saturday's Grade 1, $250,000 Hollywood Turf Cup, had a canter around the main track on Wednesday morning with exercise rider Fenella O'Flynn.

His trainer, Graham Motion, was surprised to find the weather as brisk and chilly as it was Wednesday morning.

"But I guess the cool weather is good for him, coming from where we're coming from," said Motion, who is based at Fair Hill, Md. "In Texas, it was humid."

The humid weather did not bother Better Talk Now. He won the Breeders' Cup Turf at Lone Star Park.

Wednesday morning, while touring the shed row at Mandella's barn, Better Talk Now repeatedly nipped at the hayrack of another horse while being walked.

"He seems to get his way since the Breeders' Cup," Motion said.

The 1 1/2-mile Turf Cup is a weight-for-age race in which older horses carry 126 pounds. Dominguez will ride Better Talk Now. His rivals are expected to include Balestrini (Mike Smith the rider), Habaneros (Flores), Hatif (Baze), License to Run, Megahertz (Rene Douglas), Moscow Burning (Valdivia), Pellegrino (Gary Stevens), and Puerto Banus (Kent Desormeaux).

Balestrini has finished second in a pair of allowance races in his last two starts. He is eligible to first-level allowance races, but was good enough earlier this year to finish third in the Bay Meadows Breeders' Cup Handicap.

"It's not a question of the distance," said Balestrini's trainer, Neil Drysdale. "It's a question of up here," he said, pointing to his head.