Believe You Can readies for Falls City with five-furlong move

Believe You Can readies for Falls City with five-furlong

move

Trainer Larry Jones had a visitor at Churchill Downs to watch

a Saturday work by 2012 Kentucky Oaks winner Believe You Can, who is a candidate for the

Grade 2, $150,000 Falls City Handicap on the

Thanksgiving Day racing program at the Louisville, Kentucky, track on November 28.

The visitor was not an impartial observer. Former Kentucky

Gov. Brereton Jones looked on as his homebred filly worked five furlongs in

1:00 4/5 over the fast track with jockey Alan Garcia in the irons. The move

ranked as seventh-fastest of 48 at the distance.

The four-year-old daughter Proud Citizen covered three-eighths

of a mile in :35 3/5 and galloped out six furlongs in 1:14 2/5.

Jones, the trainer, said the plan is for Believe You

Can to celebrate Thanksgiving at Churchill Downs.

"That's our game plan," he said. "We'll just keep our

fingers crossed that all continues to go well.

"Our galloping out was what we hadn't been doing, but she galloped out much

better today. We've got time for one more work next Saturday and we'll know for

darned sure, but she's moving along kind of like we thought she should and

could."

The Falls City would be the fourth career start at

Churchill Downs for Believe You Can. She ran sixth as a juvenile in the Pocahontas and

returned five months later to win the Oaks under jockey

Rosie Napravnik, who became the first woman to ride an Oaks winner. Believe You

Can returned

to the Twin Spires this spring to finish third in the La Troienne on Kentucky Oaks Day

following a troubled start.

Saturday's work could work out to be an audition for Garcia as Napravik, Believe You Can's regular racing partner, could be busy elsewhere on

Thanksgiving Day. Jones said she could be riding the talented sprinter Delaunay

in Fair Grounds' Thanksgiving Day Handicap.

After the Falls City, Jones plans to point Believe You Can

to Sam Houston Race Park's $400,000 Houston Ladies Classic on January 25, a race

the trainer won this year with Joyful Victory. After that, he'll wait

to see what happens.

"I don't know whether she'll train all year (in 2014) --

he's (Brereton Jones) been talking about breeding her," Larry Jones said. "She

will be bred next year, but she's got some racing left in her."

Another Falls City candidate in action on Saturday was multiple stakes

heroine Flashy American, who breezed four furlongs in :48 1/5 for

trainer Kenny McPeek. The Flashy Bull four-year-old gray filly won Churchill's Locust Grove in

September.

Other notable workers at Churchill on Saturday included Laugh Track, Medal

Count, Uncaptured and Coastline.

Group 3 victor Laugh Track, just a neck second in the Breeders' Cup Sprint

last out, breezed four furlongs in :47 1/5 for trainer Mark Casse

Grade 2 scorer Uncaptured, Canada's Horse of the Year and champion

two-year-old male in 2012, breezed five furlongs in 1:00 3/5. The Casse trainee

was last seen finishing fifth in the Indiana Derby on October 5.

Stablemate and Street Sense winner Coastline logged five-eighths in 1:00 2/5.

Medal Count, 11th in the Breeders' Cup Juvenile two weeks ago, covered a

half-mile in :47 for trainer Dale Romans.

On the fast dirt at Trackside Louisville, Mike Maker's Secretariat conqueror

Admiral Kitten breezed five furlongs in 1:01 2/5.

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