Favorite win of the weekend?

[my miss storm cat]

Not the best but your favorite.....

Mine was Jonesboro.

Had to dig this up but here's why. A real comeback kid.

On Jonesboro, from June of last year.....

Jonesboro trainer optimistic for Foster
Morse hoping for 'shocker'

By Jennie Rees
jrees@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal

In deciding whether to run Jonesboro in Saturday's $750,000-added Stephen Foster Handicap, trainer Randy Morse could have gotten some encouragement from a couple of his fellow Churchill Downs horsemen.

Last year Ron Moquett won his first Grade I race when Seek Gold took the Stephen Foster at 91-1 odds. Three years ago Walter Bindner did the same when Colonial Colony, a last-minute entrant, won in the slop at 62-1.

"There have been some shockers the last few years," said Morse, who likewise would earn his first Grade I victory with a win in the Stephen Foster. "You never know, maybe it will happen again. Being realistic, he'll be a fairly long shot. There are some pretty nice horses in there. But it's horse racing. You never know what will happen."

Jonesboro, 15-1 in the field of eight older horses, has better credentials going in than either Seek Gold or Colonial Colony, neither of whom had won a stakes. The 5-year-old Jonesboro has won six races, including Oaklawn's Grade III Essex.

Kentucky Derby-winning jockey Calvin Borel, who won last year on Seek Gold, will ride Jonesboro.

The 1 1/8-mile Foster is the signature event of Churchill's Stephen Foster Super Saturday program, which features six graded stakes. Master Command is the 2-1 favorite; the Todd Pletcher trainee won Hawthorne's Grade III National Jockey Club and the Fair Grounds' Grade II New Orleans Handicap in his last two starts.

There is a lot of speed in the Foster, but Morse believes that will help Jonesboro, who has been in front for at least a half-mile in his past six races.

"He's been on the lead when they went soft fractions, and he really hasn't finished like I think he's capable," he said. "He won a stakes as a 3-year-old when they took him off the pace. We're going to definitely take him back."

Jonesboro is a son of champion Mom's Command, who in 1985 swept New York's filly triple crown and the Alabama while ridden by owner Peter Fuller's daughter Abby. The 25-year-old mare was euthanized a week before Jonesboro became her first graded-stakes winner in the Essex. Two weeks ago Mom's Command was announced as being a 2007 inductee to the National Museum of Racing's Hall of Fame after being on the ballot eight times without selection.

Morse bought Jonesboro as a yearling for $27,000 for owner Michael Langford, who is from Jonesboro, Ark. He also purchased Mom's Command's last foal for $30,000, the 3-year-old Tri Delt Girl, who will run in an allowance race Saturday.

In her early years Mom's Command was bred to blue-blood stallions (Danzig, Mr. Prospector, Alydar, Easy Goer) with limited success. Jonesboro is by Sefapiano, a son of the deceased Fappiano who stands for $2,500. But Sefapiano is out of Sefa's Beauty, who was a top mare around the Midwest around the time Mom's Command dominated the New York 3-year-old fillies.

"I was just looking at the (physical) individual," Morse said of buying Jonesboro. "But I've seen that happen in the past. They'll breed those mares to top studs and come up with nothing. Then they breed them to some kind of off-the-wall horse and -- boom -- they get a runner. It's all a crapshoot anyway. But you have Sefa's Beauty on one side, Mom's Command on the other."

The 5-year-old Jonesboro is lucky to even be alive. He won Oaklawn's Northern Spur two years ago to become Mom's Command's first stakes-winner of any fashion. Jonesboro came out of the race with a fractured cannon bone. He was off a year, came back briefly and was off for five months.

"With the injury he had as a 3-year-old, it's pretty amazing he's even running, especially at this level," Morse said.