ShareThisBy CLIFF GUILLIAMS
Scripps Howard News Service
Friday, May 04, 2007
Today's Kentucky Derby story is about modesty.
Trainer Larry Jones' modesty, and for that matter his wife, best friend and assistant trainer Cindy's, too. Unquestionably it's one of their charms.
Maybe it's second only to their superb horsemanship and straightforward, meticulous ability to detail when preparing a horse for a race, regardless of dollar value or worldly acclaim.
Modesty is a solid reason why even the most rabid bettors who exclude Jones' colt Hard Spun from their selections in Saturday's 133rd Derby at Churchill Downs won't be too disturbed if the classy son of Danzig were to bust loose in the 20-horse field and win going away under jockey Mario Pino. A winner in five of six career starts, including the $500,000 Lanes End, Hard Spun is 15-1 and breaks from post position No. 8.
If there is a successor to the five-time Derby winning trainer "Plain" Ben Jones, it is James Larry Jones, a boy who made it the hard way from Hopkinsville, Ky.
Their paths to the Kentucky Derby are different. Yet both formerly were farmers. Resting on both of their brows is an ever-present Stetson.
"Lot of people could have gotten Hard Spun where he is," said Larry Jones. "Good horses make good trainers and good jockeys ..."
Don't buy that humility. Bad trainers ruin good horses. Bad riders get them beat.
Jones is an old-school horseman who's made bad horses win. He did all the work then. Picking their feet, walking them, cleaning stalls and equipment, raking the shed row, setting feed, putting on bandages.
As a kid growing up on the family farm, he dreamed of horses. His first mount was one of his grandfather's mules. In the early 1970s, his first racing experience came with quarter horses. Then in 1979, he bought his first thoroughbred.
Nowadays, with two divisions numbering 60 horses, Jones bases much of his success on purchasing yearlings at modest prices and developing them into valuable runners.
An Ellis mainstay for years, last season he switched his operation to Delaware Park with a more lucrative purse structure. Had that not happened, there'd probably be no Hard Spun in his care.
Owner Rick Porter, a Delaware native, was splitting with former trainer John Servis, a friend of Jones.' Last May, Porter called Jones and made him an offer. Before Larry would take the horses, he asked for and received Servis' approval.
"Call this a blessing," said Larry. "The chances of me having this horse last year were slim and none."
(Contact Cliff Guilliams of The Evansville Courier in Indiana at www.evansville.net.)
