Fair Grounds: Cassatt may be ambitiously spotted in Rachel Alexandra

Trainer Larry Jones probably will have two fillies for the Feb. 22 Rachel Alexandra Stakes, with Cassatt likely to join stablemate and potential favorite Divine Beauty in the Grade 3, $200,000 prep for the $500,000 Fair Grounds Oaks on March 29.

Cassatt, if she indeed runs, would be jumping from a maiden sprint win into a graded stakes around two turns, and that after a six-week layoff. The preparation is not ideal, nor is it what Jones intended, but Jones wasn’t able to find an interim race between Cassatt’s eye-catching second-start victory last month at Fair Grounds and the Rachel Alexandra. A trip to a minor Sam Houston stakes against males was scratched, and a first-level turf allowance Jones planned to enter last weekend failed to attract sufficient entries to be carded.

“We would have loved to have another race in her, but we’re still pointing toward the Rachel Alexandra,” said Jones, who trains Cassatt for Fox Hill Farms. “We’re going to have to get her there off her works. She did real good the other day.”

The other day was Monday, when Cassatt drilled five furlongs – working solo – in 1:00.40, the second-fastest of 44 workouts at the distance. Cassatt will have her major work for her stakes debut next week, when Jones plans to work her one mile. Cassatt, a daughter of Tapit, finished third debuting in a two-turn maiden last fall at Churchill, but overcame significant trouble to win her maiden by more than four lengths at a sprint trip probably short of her ideal distance.

Divine Beauty in December won the Letellier at Fair Grounds over six furlongs by more than six lengths and finished a good second in her two-turn debut to potential star Unbridled Forever, who is awaiting the Fair Grounds Oaks, and she had a much easier work Monday than Cassatt, breezing five furlongs in 1:03.60. Albano, the Jones-trained colt who finished second in the Lecomte and is being pointed to the Feb. 22 Risen Star, had a similar work Monday, going five-eighths in 1:02. Both horses worked alone but will drill in company next week, Jones said.

Jones also unveiled another potentially stakes-class 3-year-old on Jan. 31 when The Trunk Monkey won his debut by a neck over sharp second-time starter Glacken Too. The Trunk Monkey, who broke slowly but quickly ran up to join the early pace, went six furlongs in a quick 1:10.30, a time that produced an 86 Beyer Speed Figure.

The Trunk Monkey, another Fox Hill colt, is by Old Fashioned, an excellent early-season 3-year-old whom Jones also trained.

“We’ve liked him a lot for a long time, and he’s been a favorite not just because he’s an Old Fashioned, but because he’s so much like his daddy,” Jones said. “You could not clone a horse to act more or train more like his sire.”

The Trunk Monkey isn’t Triple Crown-nominated and has a lot of speed on the bottom of his pedigree, but Jones thinks the colt will get at least a middle distance, and hopes to try him around two turns in a first-level allowance race.

“I don’t think he’s going to have any trouble stretching out because he runs off after every work he has,” Jones said.