by Jeff Lowe
Proud Spell earned a week off with her victory in the Alabama Stakes (G1) on August 16, and trainer Larry Jones is trying to take a step back himself before he and owner-breeder Brereton Jones settle on plans for her fall campaign.
Larry Jones did say the Fitz Dixon Cotillion Stakes (G2) on September 20 at Philadelphia Park and Breeders’ Cup Ladies’ Classic (G1) on October 24 at Santa Anita Park would be among the considerations.
In placing the Alabama win alongside her victories in the Kentucky Oaks (G1), Delaware Oaks (G2), and Fair Grounds Oaks (G2), Proud Spell strengthened her credentials for the three-year-old filly Eclipse Award.
Jones sees the $750,000 Cotillion as a logical option for the Proud Citizen filly’s next start, but he is in no hurry to push along a season that began in the Silverbulletday Stakes (G3) on February 9 at Fair Grounds. She has made a start in every subsequent month.
“We’re looking and kind of leaning toward the Cotillion but it’s kind of penciled in,” Larry Jones said. “She’s definitely earned this week off. We’re not training on her, we’re just letting her be a horse. She’s at Fair Hill [Training Center] and she’s getting to play in the paddock about an hour a day, as long as she stays quiet.
“We just want to see how she does. Sooner or later, this horse has got to get tired and she’ll tell us she needs a rest. She’s been going all year. She’s been kind of a little machine up to now, but she is flesh and bone. She was a late foal so we didn’t start her two-year-old campaign until kind of late and she’s been steady ever since.”
Initially after the Alabama, Jones looked at late October as a good time for Proud Spell to get a rest. He was ready to rule her out of the Ladies’ Classic, skeptical that she would not care for the synthetic surface at Santa Anita Park. Proud Spell finished third in the Ashland Stakes (G1) on April 5 at Keeneland Race Course in her only start on a synthetic track. She trains regularly on the Tapeta surface at Fair Hill.
Jones backed off that position on Thursday morning after talking to her owner.
“I wanted to rule it out just because I don’t think the synthetic surface is her favorite track, but Brereton is still keeping the option open,” Jones said. “It’s not easy for her to get over it. I trained her on the synthetic [at Fair Hill] for the Alabama because I know she gets a lot out of it, because it’s not easy for her.”
Jones is thinking the Santa Anita surface might be more favorable for Honest Man, who scored his first stakes win in the Philip H. Iselin Stakes (G3) on August 16 at Monmouth Park. Jones said the Unbridled’s Song colt has taken well to the Fair Hill surface in his training, and he will likely target the Kentucky Cup Classic Stakes (G2) on September 27 over Turfway Park’s Polytrack surface as a possible prep for the Breeders’ Cup.
“I have learned that training on it and racing on it are two different things,” so we’re going to put him to the test,” Jones said.
Jones and Honest Man’s co-owner, Rick Porter, won the Kentucky Cup Classic last year with Hard Spun, who went on to finish second in the Breeders’ Cup Classic Powered by Dodge (G1).
Jeff Lowe is a Thoroughbred Times staff writer