Trainer Larry Jones plans for a summer at Churchill

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Over the past four years, trainer Larry Jones would only stick around Churchill Downs in the spring through Derby week – perhaps winning a Kentucky Oaks along the way – before heading east with his stable to Delaware Park.

This late spring and summer brings change for him. A Hopkinsville, Ky. native, Jones has chosen to stay put in Kentucky, though he has not ruled out shipping to Delaware for races.

In the meantime, he has horses to race at Churchill, including Astrollinthepark in Thursday evening’s seventh race, a $59,000 second-level allowance that serves as the feature.

Coming off a trio of competitive tries in similar races this year in Arkansas and Kentucky, she fits based on form if she can last the seven-furlong distance. In three previous attempts at the trip, she has run fourth, fifth, and sixth, though Jones believes her losses in those races were the result of facing stakes company, not an inability to stay the distance.

“She can get seven furlongs,” he said. “She’s a half to Hard Aces. He won at a mile and a half.”

Twice, in fact. Hard Aces, a son of Hard Spun who now stands at stud in Louisiana, won at 1 1/2 miles in the Cougar II Handicap in 2016 and then last year in the Tokyo City Cup, both in California. He also took the Grade 1 Gold Cup at Santa Anita in 2015 going 1 1/4 miles in the most significant victory of his career.

Astrollinthepark, a 4-year-old daughter of Divine Park owned and bred by Dreamchaser Thoroughbreds, is a stakes winner in her own right, albeit at six furlongs, having won the Austintown Filly Sprint at Mahoning Valley in near wire-to-wire fashion in 2017.

This year she has settled more early in her races, which Jones believes will help her stretch out to seven-eighths, particularly under jockey Florent Geroux, who has a return call on Thursday.

“He can get her to go back without a fight,” he said.

Geroux and Jones have a winning history together. Geroux was the regular rider aboard the Jones-trained I’m a Chatterbox during her Grade 1-winning campaigns in 2015 and 2016, including when she was third in the 2015 Kentucky Oaks behind winning stablemate Lovely Maria.

Lovely Maria is one of three Jones-trained winners of the Kentucky Oaks, all of whom raced for former Kentucky Gov. Brereton Jones, with the others being Believe You Can in 2012 and Proud Spell in 2008.

Jones does not have any horses of that quality in his 28-horse stable, though he does appear to have one that appears soon destined for graded stakes: Stave, a 3-year-old Ghostzapper filly who took an allowance on the Churchill Downs turf Saturday for her second consecutive win.

The Grade 3 Regret at Churchill Downs on June 16 is under consideration for her next start.