Jones has hot hand over weekend

It was one of those weekends for trainer Larry Jones. In the first race Sunday, for maiden claimers, his starters ran one-two, and later on that card, 4-year-old The Sandman won his two-turn debut over first-level allowance foes by 7 3/4 lengths.

Saturday had been even better. Jones sent out Hard Aces to win his first stakes in the $75,000 Louisiana Handicap, and a couple races later, his trainee I’m a Chatterbox impressively won the listed Silverbulletday Stakes.

Under Florent Geroux, I’m a Chatterbox shot to the lead from post 1, made the pace, broke away from the field in midstretch, and won by eight lengths. Her time of 1:43.21 for one mile and 70 yards produced a Beyer Speed Figure of 93, which is very high for an early-season 3-year-old route race. Geroux stopped by the barn first thing Sunday morning.

“I think he’s got a new best friend,” Jones said.

Jones gave Geroux a favorable report: The filly had come out of the race in good shape. If all goes well, she will start next on Feb. 21 in the Grade 3 Rachel Alexandra Stakes at Fair Grounds.

“She’s been prancing and dancing in the shed row like she thinks she did something really good,” Jones said Monday.

I’m a Chatterbox, by Munnings, came to Jones late last fall after making three starts for trainer Ken McPeek, the last of them a fourth-place finish in the Golden Rod Stakes, a race in which the speedy filly rallied from far back. Jones said I’m a Chatterbox had put on weight since arriving at Fair Grounds. Jones gallops the filly, and he could feel beneath him a horse sharpening up in recent weeks.

“We saw she could do it once,” he said. “Now, we got to find out if she can do it a second time, or even a third.”

Owing to her relatively light frame, I’m a Chatterbox will not have a heavy schedule leading to the Rachel Alexandra. Jones tentatively plans to work her twice.

Hard Aces, a 5-year-old making his 19th start, ran the race of his life in the Louisiana, winning by four lengths and earning a 103 Beyer. Jones put the move forward down to maturation. He said there was a good chance Hard Aces would return for the Grade 3 Mineshaft Handicap at Fair Grounds Feb. 21.

Albano finished third in the Louisiana, his first start at age 4, and Jones said Albano had come out of the race with swelling in a hind leg.

“A week to 10 days, he ought to be over it, and then we’ll see where we are,” Jones said.

The Sandman, a son of Bernardini making his fourth start on Sunday, had floundered in slop when finishing last of nine in a Dec. 31 sprint, but in Sunday’s seventh race, his two-turn debut, he made the lead, set a modest tempo, then ran off and hid, his blowout win producing a 97 Beyer. Jones said he planned to point The Sandman to a second-level dirt-route allowance at Fair Grounds.