Larry Jones's winter string does not include 3-year-old star fillies

Trainer Larry Jones, unlike many outfits that spent the early autumn in Kentucky, already has shipped his entire string to Fair Grounds to prepare for the meet.

“Once we got out of Keeneland after the Breeders’ Cup, we took it all down here,” Jones said. “We’ve got 44 stabled here as of this morning.”

Absent from the Jones string are his two Grade 1-winning 3-year-old fillies of 2015, I’m a Chatterbox and Lovely Maria. I’m a Chatterbox, eighth in the Breeders’ Cup Distaff after an excellent campaign, will be turned out for six to eight weeks at a farm near Lexington, Ky. There are no major stakes for older fillies and mares at Fair Grounds, and Jones said he’s unsure what shape I’m a Chatterbox’s 2016 campaign will take. At the last Fair Grounds meet, I’m a Chatterbox won the Silverbulletday, Rachel Alexandra, and Fair Grounds Oaks.

“We’ll get her training and started and let her tell us, with the possibility of maybe even giving her a chance on turf,” Jones said. “We entered her for turf here last year, and the races didn’t go.”

Lovely Maria, the Kentucky Oaks winner, was sent back to owner Brereton Jones’s Airdrie Stud after finishing fifth in the Spinster Stakes on Oct. 4 at Keeneland.

“Plans for Lovely Maria have not been totally finalized,” said Brereton Jones’s son, Bret Jones.

Larry Jones, meanwhile, said his 2-year-olds this year “have started out a little slow,” but expect Jones to be a factor at Fair Grounds. Jones has won between 21 and 31 races at each of the last four Fair Grounds meets and twice in that span has produced a return on investment of more than $2.