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The only boy of seven children raised in the Central Texas town of Rockdale, James Robert Jones spent most of his spare time at a neighboring horse farm, where he progressed from cleaning out stalls to exercising horses.

“It was a means of escaping all the women in the house,” his sister Mindee Poldrack joked.

Barely a teen when he started riding in races at fairgrounds and on the bush track circuit — unregulated race tracks that flourished before pari-mutuel betting became legal in 1987 — Jones traveled throughout Texas and to Louisiana before graduating from high school.

“Those were some good times back in the ’70s and ’80s,” said longtime friend and fellow horse trainer Randy Mayfield. “You’d ride 10 horses a day; when you’re in junior high and high school getting $50 a week, that was a lot of money back in those days.”

Although too tall to be a jockey by the time he was 16, Jones continued working with thoroughbreds, learning from trainers such as Tommie Morgan, Danny Pish, and John Charles “Jack” Van Berg.

Moving to Kentucky after graduating from high school, Jones was the assistant trainer for Frank Brothers at the prestigious Claiborne Farm for several years.

“He worked with some of the better horses in the industry,” said Jackie Morgan, who, along with her late husband Tommie, employed Jones as a teen. “He was quite an accomplished horseman.”

Jones, 52, died at home Feb. 3 after a recurrence of multiple myeloma.

Returning to Texas to be closer to his family in about 2000, Jones continued to work for trainers at Retama Park in San Antonio, and in Houston and Dallas.

The lifestyle suited him.

Starting his day at 4 a.m., Jones was often at the race tack until well after dark.

“I think he found it all exhilarating, that lifestyle,” Poldrack said.

Jones had begun building stables for his own training facility on his family’s homestead in Montgomery County when he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2010.

Moving to San Antonio to live with his mother, Jones fought the disease, and was in remission, but “had to give up the stable idea,” Poldrack said. “He was not supposed to get on a horse.”

Even so, Jones continued working, getting a job with the Northside Independent School District in the maintenance department.

“Nobody ever had anything bad to say about him,” Mayfield said. “He (saw) the good in everybody.”

James Robert Jones

Born: Oct. 2, 1964, Baytown

Died: Feb. 3, 2017, San Antonio

Preceded by: Two brother-in-laws; a nephew.

Survived by: Mother Peggy Selden; father Pete Jones and stepmother Barbara; sisters Mindee Poldrack and brother-in-law Carl, Terri Miller and brother-in-law Don, Kay Kay Johanson, Jeanne Whitehead, Michele Hartmann and brother-in-law Mark, and PK “Kate” Jones-Templeton and brother-in-law Ben Templeton; nieces and nephews.

Services: Celebration of life at 2 p.m.Saturday at Lone Star Cowboy Church, 21627 Eva St., Montgomery.

mheidbrink@express-news.net

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