I'm a Chatterbox ramps up training for return
NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Larry Jones is trying to take it easy with I’m a Chatterbox, but the 4-year-old filly, who has a chance to be named champion 3-year-old filly of 2015 at the Eclipse Awards this weekend, is getting restless.
Jones had been restricting I’m a Chatterbox’s morning exercise to half-mile gallops until two days ago. With I’m a Chatterbox pushing to do more, he let her begin galloping one mile.
“She’s ramped it up a little bit these last two days,” Jones said Friday morning after training hours.
I’m a Chatterbox got a rest after an eighth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff, her worst showing in an otherwise strong 2015 campaign which saw her sweep the Fair Grounds three-race stakes series for 3-year-old fillies and get an overdue Grade 1 win in the Cotillion in the fall. Jones said he’ll continue to bring I’m a Chatterbox back toward a race as quietly as possible and said he might look for a comeback spot sometime in March.
Cassatt meanwhile is smack in the middle of a racing cycle, and after a bullet five-furlong workout Monday, she remains on course to try to win the $400,000 Sam Houston Ladies Classic for the second year in a row Jan. 30. That race, a listed stakes last year, now is a Grade 3, but Jones and owner Rick Porter have designs on winning a Grade 1 with Cassatt somewhere, sometime this year.
Another Jones-trained filly, the sprinter Thirteen Arrows, remains possible for the Barbara Fritchie Handicap Feb. 13 at Laurel Park, but Jones is not keen to ship cross-country and take on La Verdad, another Fritchie candidate. Thirteen Arrows is galloping but hasn’t worked back since she beat just two rivals in the Pan Zareta Stakes here Dec. 26.
Jones also won maiden races last week with the 3-year-old filly Sapphire Seas and the 3-year-old colt Jensen, both owned by Jones and his wife, Cindy. Sapphire Seas won her debut and looked all right, but Jensen might be the stronger prospect. A closing second behind a slow pace in his first start, he was handy throughout a 1 1/2-length win in a Jan. 10 maiden score, which produced a 74 Beyer Speed Figure. Jensen’s two races came at six furlongs, but he is almost certainly a route horse in waiting, and Jones will look to stretch out both Jensen and Sapphire Seas in allowance company when they next start.