Ben and Jimmy Jones Horse Racing

Ben Jones and his son Horace “Jimmy” Jones were prominent figures in the horse racing industry from the 1930s through the 1960s. The Parnell, Missouri, natives both started racing and training horses when they were teenagers. With famous horses such as Citation, Iron Liege, and Tim Tam, the father-son duo won eight Kentucky Derbies between 1938 and 1958 and were inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in the late 1950s.

Benjamin Allyn Jones was born in Parnell, a small town in Nodaway County, on December 31, 1882. “Plain Ben Jones,” as he would later be nicknamed by the press, was the son of Horace Allyn Jones, one of the town’s founders and owner of the Parnell Bank. While the elder Jones wanted his son to take over the bank, Ben found his calling at the racetrack. Asked why he chose to become a horse trainer instead of a small-town banker, Ben Jones reportedly remarked, “When I was a boy, I was crazy about horses and Holstein cows. Couldn’t decide which I liked better. When I got big enough to help with the milking, I made up my mind.” 

Before establishing himself in the horse racing world, Jones married local schoolteacher Cora McLaughlin in 1905. The following year Horace Allyn “Jimmy” Jones was born. When his two children were young, Ben Jones had his first racing victory in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. His success continued to grow through the 1910s and 1920s. 

In 1930, Ben Jones was hired as head trainer for Kansas City businessman Herbert Woolf’s Woolford Farm in Prairie Village, Kansas. During his time in Kansas, Jones and his son Jimmy trained the 1938 Kentucky Derby and Flamingo Stakes winner Lawrin. In 1939, Ben and Jimmy Jones were hired by baking powder magnate Warren Wright Sr. as trainers for Wright’s Calumet Farms in Kentucky, with Ben as head trainer. After an overhaul of the training programs at Calumet Farms, the Jones family found great success there, winning the Kentucky Derby a combined seven times. Ben Jones’s Kentucky Derby winners included Whirlaway (1941), Pensive (1944), Citation (1948), Ponder (1949), and Hill Gail (1952). Jimmy Jones is credited with training Derby winners Iron Liege (1957) and Tim Tam (1958). Altogether, these champion horses won fifty-four stakes races. As legendary jockey Eddie Arcaro once observed, “You’d have to be some kind of nincompoop not to win on a horse trained by Ben or Jimmy Jones.”

In 1958, Ben Jones was inducted into the National Horse Racing Hall of Fame, and he retired that same year. He passed away three years later and was buried in his hometown of Parnell next to his wife. His death dealt a heavy blow to Calumet Farms and the horse racing world. Jimmy Jones replaced his father as head trainer, but he later parted ways with Calumet Farms due to differing opinions in management. Jimmy retired from training in 1964 and eventually moved back to Parnell.

After his career as a horse trainer, Jimmy Jones remained an active commentator and observer of the sport. He participated in dozens of interviews throughout his retirement and discussed the changing industry up until his death in Maryville, Missouri, in 2001. After his death, Jones’s estate gave several hundred thousand dollars to St. Francis Hospital in Maryville and donated artifacts to the Nodaway County Historical Society, some of which are on display at the Society’s museum, while others are on loan to the Kentucky Racing Museum. Jimmy Jones is buried near his mother and father in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Parnell.