Thornberry enjoys productive week

NEW ORLEANS – Trainer Jeff Thornbury, who hasn’t run many horses at the Fair Grounds meet, struck last week for three victories in five starts. He won a race on each of three consecutive days.

The winners were Tonto’s Sister ($10.20) in a maiden-claiming race Jan. 29, Cone of Light ($10.80) in a claiming race Jan. 30, and Quality Indeed ($22.40) in a maiden-claiming race Jan. 31.

“It just happened to be that the horses were in the right spot,” said Thornbury, who through Thursday had won six of 27 starts at the meet. “They were kind of banging away without getting it done.”

In December, Thornbury rewarded his supporters in a big way when Penny’s Deputy paid $101 to win in a conditioned claiming sprint on turf.

Thornbury, 61, said he has 15 horses at Fair Grounds and “a bunch of babies” at Keeneland. “I don’t have any stars in the barn right now, but we’ll see.”

Horses, of course, can develop. In 2010 at Hoosier Park, Thornbury got away with running Wild About Marie in $15,000 maiden-claiming company in her second start. “She wasn’t one you’d reach in and take,” Thornbury said. Wild About Marie won, wasn’t claimed, and was on her way to a lucrative career. She won four turf-sprint stakes – the Leggio and Bienville at Fair Grounds in 2011, the Franklin County at Keeneland in 2011, and the Unbridled Sidney at Churchill Downs in 2012.

Mad Flatter, a multiple graded stakes winner who ran nine times at Fair Grounds from 2007-11, was the best horse Thornbury trained, he said. That is, he said, among horses who raced under his name. He helped in the preparation of Grindstone, who won the Kentucky Derby in 1996 for trainer D. Wayne Lukas, and Tabasco Cat, who won the Preakness and Belmont Stakes in 1994 for Lukas.

When Grindstone was coming back to training as a 2-year-old in 1995 after having a bone chip removed from a knee, he went to Thornbury’s farm in Paris, Ky., the trainer said. “I just legged him up for Wayne,” Thornbury said. He said he broke Tabasco Cat. “I got him track-wise at Keeneland,” Thornbury said. “I had a lot of the Overbrook [Farm] horses.”