Fair Grounds: Jones restocks barn with promising 2-year-olds

NEW ORLEANS – With Grade 1 winners Joyful Victory and Believe You Can – the big girls of the stable – gone, trainer Larry Jones is looking toward promising young horses as a foundation for success at this Fair Grounds meet.

“We expect to have a good meet,” Jones said. “We expect to come out of here with some horses.”

It won’t be easy to fill the holes left by Joyful Victory and Believe You Can.

A 5-year-old mare, Joyful Victory is off to be a broodmare for Aaron and Marie Jones, who purchased her for $2 million at the Fasig-Tipton November sale. She closed her racing career with seven victories, including four in graded races, from 20 starts and earnings of $1,252,679.

Believe You Can’s best season was 2012, when she won the Kentucky Oaks and Fair Grounds Oaks. From 14 career starts, she won eight races, three of them graded, and earned $1,280,324. She was retired to owner-breeder Brereton Jones’s Airdrie Stud last month.

“We sent her back just for some tests after a work,” Larry Jones said. “We tried to get her ready for the Falls City.”

Replenishing the stock is a key to keeping any stable thriving, and Jones is optimistic about several 2-year-olds in his barn. Divine View, a Divine Park colt out of the Skip Away mare Window Woman, won a 6 1/2-furlong maiden race in his debut Nov. 16 at Churchill Downs by 2 3/4 lengths.

“He wants to run long,” Jones said.

Jones also has high hopes for 2-year-old colt Albano, who in his second start won a six-furlong maiden race Nov. 24 at Fair Grounds. A son of Istan and the Fortunate Prospect mare Pocho’s Dream Girl, Albano is a half-brother to Mark Valeski, who in 2012 finished second for Jones in the Risen Star and Louisiana Derby before winning the Peter Pan at Belmont Park, and who this year won the Mineshaft and finished second in the New Orleans Handicap. Like Mark Valeski, a son of Proud Citizen, Albano was sired by a son of Gone West.

Said Jones, who exercises many of his horses: “You ride Mark Valeski. You ride Albano, and remember back to what Mark Valeski was [as a 2-year-old]. You’d say Albano is a better horse. Of course, Mark Valeski has already done it.”

Jones said he’s also high on the Divine Park filly Divine Beauty, who led all the way to defeat maidens at six furlongs in September at Churchill in her only start. Tepin, who finished fourth in that race, went on to win the Delta Downs Princess.

Cassatt, a Tapit filly who finished third but was placed second on a disqualification in a Churchill maiden race in September in her only start, “shin-bucked that race,’’ Jones said, and should be back soon.

“I think she is special,” he said.

Mark Valeski, who hasn’t raced since the Metropolitan Handicap in May, “should be getting here soon,” Jones said. The horse “pulled some fibers” in a pastern and had swelling in an ankle.

“The veterinarians say we should get him back,” Jones said.

Other older horses in the stable include multiple-stakes-winning turf sprinter Icon Ike, who had the summer off; 4-year-old fillies Starstruck and Channel Lady, both graded stakes winners on turf; and 3-year-old fillies Blue Violet, who was third in the Rachel Alexandra in February at Fair Grounds, and Smitten, who was third in the Silverbulletday. The 4-year-old filly Same Cross is 4 for 4 in sprints on the Fair Grounds dirt for Jones after running six furlongs in 1:10.61 to win an optional-claiming race Nov. 29.