I'm a Chatterbox makes turf debut in allowance

Larry Jones remembers the morning in December 2014 when he was training at Fair Grounds and fellow trainer Wayne Catalano, watching one of Jones’s horses gallop along, asked, “Is that a grass horse, Larry?”

The soon-to-be 3-year-old filly moved like a turf horse, and Jones had plans to race her on grass but instead elected to take a shot in the Silverbulletday Stakes on dirt.

“We were going to run her on turf, and then she ran in the Silverbulletday, and we thought, ‘Okay, she might be all right on dirt,’ ” Jones said.

The filly was named I’m a Chatterbox. She won the Silverbulletday by eight lengths and has gone on to win multiple Grade 1 dirt stakes. But on Saturday, two years later than originally planned, I’m a Chatterbox makes her turf debut. She will be an odds-on favorite to win race 5, a one-mile allowance race that has a condition – non-winners of two races since Sept. 4 – that lets in an eight-time winner with career earnings of more than $2 million.

I’m a Chatterbox is one of seven entrants in the race, and though the mare never has so much as set foot on a turf course, Jones is convinced she will like the experience.

“Zinger, her little brother, he’s a grass horse, and her mother was all grass,” he said. “She’s going to handle it. When I gallop behind her, she’ll cover you up in dirt, and when horses do that, that means the track is getting away from them. If the grass will hold her together, we might not have seen the best of Chatterbox yet.”

I’m a Chatterbox pressed the pace and wound up fifth in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, her 2016 finale. She was a well-beaten second behind Unbridled Mo as the odds-on favorite Jan. 29 in the Houston Ladies Classic.

“We don’t have anything else planned right now, and she came out of the Houston race so good,” said Jones. “This is a good chance to see what she can do.”

Statebreds in stakes feature

While I’m a Chatterbox is the easily the best horse racing Saturday at Fair Grounds, the actual feature on the card is race 7, the $60,000 Dixie Poker Ace for Louisiana-bred turf milers.

While I’m a Chatterbox’s connections are guessing that she will like the grass, there is no guesswork involved regarding Hail to the Nile in the Dixie Poker Ace. Hail to the Nile has won five of his 12 Fair Grounds grass starts, and his record is even stronger if one isolates two-turn tries on the course. He won the Dixie Poker Ace last meet and the Champions Day Turf during this Fair Grounds season and is very much the horse to beat Saturday.

The unknown factor is Trust Factor, who has looked sharp in Louisiana-bred allowance competition and makes his stakes debut in the Dixie Poker Ace. Fort Pulaski actually took the lead from Hail to the Nile at the stretch call of the Champions Day Turf in December, but Hail to the Nile came right back on him and was going away at the finish.