Fast and Accurate back with statebreds in Leematt

Graded stakes winner Fast and Accurate, who has spent the bulk of his career competing against open company, looks to get back in the win column as he faces fellow Pennsylvania-breds in the $100,000 Leematt, one of two stakes for statebreds on Sunday at Presque Isle Downs.

The 4-year-old Fast and Accurate is trained by Mike Maker for a partnership including Kendall Hansen and Skychai Racing, the same connections who campaigned the colt’s champion sire, Hansen. Fast and Accurate was a multiple stakes winner early in his career, highlighted by a victory in the Grade 3 Spiral Stakes at Turfway Park. That earned him a spot in the 2017 Kentucky Derby, in which he finished 17th. Since then, the colt owns a win in the Showing Up Stakes on the Gulfstream Park West turf, and has placed in four other stakes. He most recently was second, beaten three-quarters of a length, in the Miesque’s Approval Stakes on the Gulfstream turf April 28. Fast and Accurate, with Pablo Morales up, drew post 8 in the field of nine for the one-mile race.

Earlier on the card, the $100,000 Northern Fling Stakes for statebred fillies and mares drew a full field featuring a rematch between Imply and Great Soul, the top two finishers in the Lyphard Stakes on June 2 on the Penn National turf.

Imply is the defending winner of the one-mile Northern Fling. Trained by Bernard Houghton, she has raced at Presque Isle three times and has never finished worse than second. She won the Lyphard by 1 1/2 lengths.

Great Soul, a multiple stakes winner trainer by Tom Proctor, led in the stretch of the Lyphard before being overhauled by Imply.