Jones team back at FG

Larry and Cindy Jones, the husband-and-wife training duo with their perennial herd of stakes horses, were partially in residence once again on the Fair Grounds backstretch Wednesday morning. Still in absentia was Larry Jones, who is due in at the New Orleans oval Thursday as Fair Grounds begins the second racing week of its 2012-2013 meeting, which runs through March 31. "I got here a week ago Monday," said Cindy Jones, tongue-in-cheek, Wednesday morning as she put some finishing touches on one of the stalls in their barn. "I've been doing Larry's work as well as my own up to now, so it seems like the more things change the more they stay the same." Always quick with a quip -- as is her husband -- the Joneses remain one of the most likeable tandems in racing, and they have almost all of their Fair Grounds stakes winners from last season with them once again. "Believe You Can (Proud Citizen) has been here for a little while now," remarked Cindy Jones, speaking of last spring's Grade 1 Kentucky Oaks winner. "Mark Valeski (Proud Citizen) got down here a couple of days ago," she added of the Grade 2 Peter Pan hero. "Today was the first day we took him to the track." What about Mr. Bowling (Istan), who won Fair Grounds' Grade 3 Lecomte Stakes last January before wrenching his back in the Risen Star and being taken out of training? "He's here, too," Cindy Jones said, completing her updates on that trio of three-year-olds owned by Brereton Jones. "We had to turn him out after he hurt himself in the Risen Star, but he's back with us now. The only one we don't have back from last year is Havre de Grace," she concluded, speaking of the 2011 Horse of the Year...

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