view raw text
H A JIMMY JONES and his father BEN A JONES Fhoic by Meadors MeadorsCITATION CITATION 1948 Triple Crown winner and former worlds leading money winner Generally regarded as Calumet and the Joneses best horse V HIRLAWAY 1941 Triple Crown hero and also former worlds leading money vimier Grfwntt sold him lo Marcel loussac and he died at stud in France Jones Dub One of Racing F s Greatest Phenomenal Mark With Calumets CalumetsSon Son Learned Business From Father and Now Is Master Of Profession in Own Right RightJBy JBy JOE HIKSCH HIKSCHCHURCHILL CHURCHILL DOWNS Louisville Ky May 3 Just a line on tomorrows pro ¬ gram after the name Calumet Farm trainer H A Jones What a story it tells to those in the profession Great com ¬ petence great deeds the glorious saga not of one man but of two a father and son who for the late Warren Wright and now for his widow Mrs Gene Markey have made the devils red and blue a dominant power in thoroughbred racing for almost two decades decadesMake Make no mistake about it Gracious stocky 52yearold Horace Allyn Jimmy Jones is very much the trainer of the present Calumet forces as he has been since 1947 when Plain Ben Jones moved up to the post of general manager of the stables Its Jimmy who bears the responsi ¬ bility for the stables good fortunes and bad Jimmy who does the bulk of the ceaseless and fatiguing work connected with training the huge string of horses Jimmy who worries about the countless de tails that play and have played such a ma i jor role in Calumets remarkable history of success B A Amazingly Agile at 74 74Of Of course he learned the trade from his father one of the great trainers of all time Even now Benjamin Allyn Jones ramrod straight and amazingly agile of mind and body at 74 still gets on a pony for weeks before the Kentucky Derby and accompanies his son and the horses to the track in the mornings adding his sage ad ¬ vice and counsel to the smooth and effec ¬ tive stable routine that he developed At times from his retirement as active head trainer some 10 years ago circumstances have demanded that Calumet split its forces in two or more divisions and B A as he is known to his son and intimates has assumed command of one of these units on a temporary basis until Jimmy could get the entire stable under one roof again againBen Ben Jones took Hill Gail from California brought him to Kentucky and won his sixth Derbjr Again with the great Citation Jimmy trained the remarkable son of Bull Lea and Hydroplane n through his twoyearold campaign cap turned the Flamingo at Hialeah with him in February of 1948 and took him to Maryland to win the Chesapeake Remain ¬ ing North with the bulk of the stock he shipped Citation to Kentucky where B A prepped and sent him out for a smashing triumph in Americas Blue Ribband of the Turf Jimmy completed a sweep of the Triple Crown events that year with Big Cy in the Preakness and the Belmont BelmontBut But regardless of the actual credit the methods of the two men vary little meth ¬ ods that have stood the test of time with rare results Neither have much regard for a set routine and are acutely aware of that very sensitive and highly fluctuating commodity that is the pe akof condition in a thoroughbred Frequently on taking a horse to the track with a particular piece of training in mind Jimmy like his dad will notice something that rings a bell in his mind change his plans and send the horse back to the barn Its not indecision its experience and conservative conduct with an expensive piece of merchandise merchandiseOf Of all the Joneses attributes that have been pointed to as the key factors in their success none carries as much weight with their colleagues as the simple qualities of hard work and patience A veteran trainer of considerable ability and experience re ¬ cently told this reporter Have you ever noticed how grand looking the Calumet horses are when they strip in the paddock Let me tell you something about that Sure Bull Lea is a fine sire and gets strap ¬ ping horses but its more than that The Joneses give their stock a chance to de ¬ velop into colts and fillies that look the way they do When you start training a young horse you put the screws on his growth All his energy is utilized in the training and he isnt able to develop near ¬ ly as much as if hes left alone aloneStock Stock Always Better Than Others OthersThe The Joneses start their twoyearolds maybe once or twice in the late summer and dont bring them around again until they are three They dont turn the screw on their stock until they have matured and can stand the training Even when Ben Jones was working with his own horses and had to win races to eat his stock was always grand looking and bigger than the next mans mansAs As for hard work the Joneses have al ¬ ways been willing to spend long hours and weeks on the job particularly with their young horses Watch Jimmy tutor the two yearolds under the blazing Chicago sun during the summer How familiar they become with every part of the race track and the paddock Look how many hours they spend standing around the gate and in the starting stalls becoming accustomed to this strange manmade device which upsets the horses of other stables so fre ¬ quently if there is a short cut to the ac ¬ complishment of this important aspect of training then the Joneses dont know it Theyre usually among the first on the track in the dark hours of earlymorning and the last to leave to clean up for the afternoons races rarely before 11 or 1130 am long after the others have de ¬ parted partedYes Yes they have more horses than most trainers yes theyre blessed with beauti ¬ fully bred stock yes they have been work ing for fine and sportsmanlike people in Warren Wright and Mrs Markey who give them the broadest authority But the basic precepts were established by BA when he was rolling his own which as any professional horseman can tell you is the toughest of all rows to hoe Every mans hand is against you on the race track you do or die strictly on your own devices devicesAnd And so to Jimmy Jones and Ben Jones who have come a long way and have found the right path have gone the honors and the laurels Ben Jones record of saddling sixDerby winners two more than the late Dick Thompson and three more than Mr Fitz and Max Hirsch is a mark thafis riot likely to be equalled at least in our time Jimmy Jones holds his own worlds record that of having saddled the winners of more money in a single season than any other trainer 1334805 in 1947 The story of this fabulous family of i horsemen traces back to the early 1900s when BA was matching quarter horses against neighboring Indians near his home in Parnell Missouri His father sent Ben to the State Agricultural College of Colo ¬ rado but the boys first love was racing and he soon made it a career His experi ¬ ence with thoroughbreds dates back to around 1910 when he campaigned the 13 yearold Einstein around the bush tracks of the Midwest BA also became interested in breeding at the same time and eventu ¬ ally stood a horse called Seth a son of Adam Purity by Deceiver who raced for another great trainer Sam Hildreth HildrethThe The Seths were speed horses and their success made Jones famous throughout the hinterlands Captain Seth for instance foaled in 1921 won 13 out of his 19 starts Hard Wprk Brings Success to Both BothGive Give Young Stock Chance To Develop Plain Ben Holds Derby Record of Six Wins Winsas as a twoyearold and was never out of the money In all more than 200 winners of races at recognized tracks were pro ¬ duced by the Jones Stock Farm FarmIn In 1932 after years of training cheap horses for himself and for Tom Worden Jones took over the powerful Woolford Farm of the Kansas City clothing mer ¬ chant Herbert M Woolf Almost immedi ¬ ately he proved to the major turf circles what the bush horsemen knew for years ¬ that he was a pro when it came to condi ¬ tioning and winning with thoroughbreds For Woolford he developed such grand stakeswinners as Joe Schenck Techni ¬ cian Inscoelda and his first Derbywinner 1938 Lawrin One year later in 1939 Warren Wright offered him the job at Calumet T TIt It was while B A was training his own stock that Jimmy developed into a fine horseman in his own right His ca ¬ reer paralleled his dads in many respects Hed gallop horses in the mornings as youngster rushing off to make the 9 oclock school bell and at 17 was run ¬ ning the stock farm and handling the breeding activities himself He attended Northwestern Missouri State Teachers Col ¬ lege to study animal husbandry but the stable demanded too much of his time and his interest and Jimmy never got his de ¬ gree In 1926 he saddled his first winner Nose Dive at New Orleans and hes been at the ticklish game of getting horses to the finish line first ever since sinceServe Serve Coffee Between Sets SetsThere There are few more pleasant people to visit on the race track than the Joneses who between sets or after the morning chores are done entertain with steaming black coffee and fascinating tales of rac ¬ ing in other and less hectic times In his younger days there was no tougher horse ¬ man than B A who could hold his own in any roughandtumble fight asked and gave no quarter in the course of his daily business and won bigger bets than many professional gamblers Plain Ben has mel ¬ lowed a lot in recent years and while he still stands for no nonsense around the stock his delightful sense of humor comes into full play in these Hot Stove League sessions with the press and with fellow horsemen horsemenJimmy Jimmy is more diplomatic less brusque and makes all who drop by the barn feel right at home He too is fond of under ¬ lining some fact or relating some present incident with a similar happenstance out of thepast his speech laced with the in ¬ triguing colloquialisms of the race track Both he and B A have always been out ¬ spoken about prominent turf problems and have minced no words about excessive weight spreads in handicaps and other rac ¬ ing affairs of consequence Yet both also have the complete and ungrudging respect of their conferes which after all is the greatest honor that man can bestow an honor that comes only from a job well done
