Fast and Accurate tries softer spot

Trainer Mike Maker’s Fair Grounds string has struggled through an atypically unproductive meet, but a horse in his barn, Fast and Accurate, can win the featured fifth race Saturday.

Fast and Accurate drew the rail and is one of nine entered in a third-level allowance with an $80,000 claiming option carded for about 1 1/16 miles on turf. Zapperini was cross-entered in a Sunday stakes races at Sam Houston.

Fast and Accurate has earned more than a half-million dollars and banked $110,360 during 2018, so it’s slightly curious to see him entered under the $80,000 claiming option, and since winning a $30,000 maiden claimer in December 2016, Fast and Accurate has started in 15 straight stakes. But first of all, this may just be a realistic class move, and second of all, Fast and Accurate’s form is at least partly clouded by a dud of a recent race.

In the Prairie Bayou Stakes on Dec. 28 at Turfway, Fast and Accurate showed brief speed and spit the bit, finishing 11th. Go back a year, however, and Fast and Accurate ran two similarly poor races over Turfway’s synthetic surface. By contrast, his last two turf starts yielded performances that would make him a main contender Saturday.

The fact is not a single member of the field can be discounted with confidence. The program teems with tough-to-figure races, and this is one of them.