by Jeff Apel
Larry Jones, the trainer of ill-fated Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) runner-up Eight Belles, plans to retire from racing following the 2009 Breeders’ Cup World Championships.
Jones is not, however, ruling out the possibility of one day making a return to racing.
“Right now it’s less than 50-50,” Jones said. “If Las Vegas is putting up odds, I got a feeling a lot of owners are going to bet that I’m going to be back. But right now I’ve just got to see.”
Jones trained Eight Belles for Richard Porter’s Fox Hill Farms Inc. Porter compared Jones’s decision to the retirement announcement made by Brett Favre, the quarterback for the New York Jets.
Favre said following his previous season with the Green Bay Packers that he was done playing professional football, then changed his mind.
“A couple reporters asked me if I thought he was pulling a Brett Favre,” Porter said. “I said, ‘Well, you definitely could make a big bet because I’d like to bet he was pulling a Brett Favre,’ I don’t know when he would come back. But I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Jones said a combination of factors led him and his wife and assistant trainer, Cindy, to decide to retire. One was a 114-horse stable that was getting too difficult to manage. Another was the public outcry that followed Eight Belles’s breakdown in the opening leg of the Triple Crown.
“We’re not trying to close any doors. We’re not trying to keep anything open,” Jones said. “I know we’re not going to stay on this level any longer. It’s been too stressful.
“It’s been great. But I feel like we reached a level of success I never expected to. I kind of feel like [the] job [is] done.”
Porter said Jones, who is nicknamed “Cowboy,” is serious about his retirement plans.
“There ain’t no talking the ‘Cowboy’ out of something when he makes up his mind,” Porter said. “I know he’s serious. What he may be doing two years from now might be another story.”
Porter said he was “completely shocked” when Jones told him approximately three weeks ago that he planned to retire. Shortly after reaching the decision, Jones told his owners that he would not take any two-year-olds next year and declined an offer from Porter to help buy horses at the Keeneland September yearling sale, which concluded on Tuesday.
“It’s not like you can give a two-week notice and just walk out. It’s not fair to the owners,” Jones said. “We figured we’d better make a long-term project out of this and let them know. So we announced it to the owners before they went to the Keeneland sale.”
Jones has applied for stalls at Fair Grounds, which will conduct a live meeting from November 14 to March 29. By early next year, he wants to have a stable of about 70 horses. Jones would like to have that number reduced to around 50 horses by next summer.
“We hope that we’ll be around with something through the Breeders’ Cup next year,” Jones said. “We’d like to think we’ve got some two-year-olds of that caliber. Hopefully, they’ll develop and be that kind.”
Jones said his ability to rest and relax in retirement might determine how long he stays away from racing.
“A guy can only get so much rest,” the 52-year-old Jones said. “Right now we’re very tired. The body is tired.
“But I don’t know about not carrying the momentum. We’re used to carrying the momentum. Will it drive me nuts or not? I see the same thing in horses that retire all the time. Some don’t take it well.”
A former commercial farmer in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, Jones got into racing in 1980 as the owner of Ala Turf, his only horse. He took out his trainer’s license two years later after realizing he could do a better job training his own horses.
Horses trained by Jones have compiled $23,396,459 in North American purse earnings through Monday. His horses have earned 640 wins, including 25 graded stakes victories, in 3,445 starts.
Besides Eight Belles, other graded stakes winners this year trained by Jones and his wife include Proud Spell, Maren’s Meadow, Buy the Barrel, Kodiak Kowboy, Honest Man, and Sweet Hope.
Jones recently was suspended for seven days and fined $500 by the Delaware Thoroughbred Commission after Stones River, a horse he trained, tested positive for clenbuterol, a prohibited race-day medication. Jones appealed the suspension.
A sponge also was discovered last year in the nostril of a horse trained by Jones, who regularly gallops his own horses.
“I know Larry has been stressed out. He’s overworked,” Porter said. “He’s a very hands-on guy. He’s got a lot more horses than he’s ever had before. I don’t think he’s been able to find the kind of help he was hoping to find. It’s taken a toll on him.”
Jones is confident that he and his wife will not change their minds and reverse their retirement decision.
“I think we’re going to have to call it off for a while,” Jones said. “We’re looking forward to it. Now that we’ve decided to do that, it sounds like a good idea.”
Jeff Apel is a Thoroughbred Times assistant daily news editor