Ravel injured and off Derby trail.
Larry Jones is relying on the instincts that have governed his 25 years of training racehorses. Although his latest stable star, Hard Spun, ran well enough last month in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park to earn a Beyer Speed Figure of 95, Jones still had an uneasy feeling about how the colt had trained over the Oaklawn track.
"I could just tell he was having to do too much and work too hard," said Jones, who normally gets aboard the colt for his morning gallops.
If Hard Spun goes on to make an impact on the Triple Crown trail, it will not be difficult to determine a major turning point. In somewhat of an unconventional decision, Jones abruptly plucked Hard Spun out of his large string at Oaklawn and had him moved to Florence, Ky., where the colt has been in training for nearly two weeks for the $500,000 Lane's End Stakes at Turfway Park, which will be run for the 36th time Saturday.
"Pretty much off the start, you could tell that [Oaklawn] wasn't his favorite track, either to train on or breeze on," Jones said Tuesday. "I thought that after a while he'd be okay, but it was just one of those deals. He just was not the horse for this course."
Larry Jones is relying on the instincts that have governed his 25 years of training racehorses. Although his latest stable star, Hard Spun, ran well enough last month in the Southwest Stakes at Oaklawn Park to earn a Beyer Speed Figure of 95, Jones still had an uneasy feeling about how the colt had trained over the Oaklawn track.
"I could just tell he was having to do too much and work too hard," said Jones, who normally gets aboard the colt for his morning gallops.
If Hard Spun goes on to make an impact on the Triple Crown trail, it will not be difficult to determine a major turning point. In somewhat of an unconventional decision, Jones abruptly plucked Hard Spun out of his large string at Oaklawn and had him moved to Florence, Ky., where the colt has been in training for nearly two weeks for the $500,000 Lane's End Stakes at Turfway Park, which will be run for the 36th time Saturday.
"Pretty much off the start, you could tell that [Oaklawn] wasn't his favorite track, either to train on or breeze on," Jones said Tuesday. "I thought that after a while he'd be okay, but it was just one of those deals. He just was not the horse for this course."
