Flat Out Speed will be tough to catch in Bryant Stakes

Flat Out Speed will be an odds-on favorite to beat four fellow Iowa-bred 3-year-old fillies in the $52,375 Bob Bryant Stakes on Saturday at Prairie Meadows.

Trained by Lynn Chleborad for co-breeder Poindexter Thoroughbreds, Flat Out Speed went 3 for 3 last year as a 2-year-old, making all her starts at Prairie Meadows, where she won two stakes races, including the open Prairie Gold Lassie.

Flat Out Speed, a daughter of Flat Out and the Street Sense mare Blue Gallina, has raced once at 3, showing speed for a half-mile before fading to finish sixth on April 25 at Oaklawn Park while facing older horses in an allowance race with far, far stronger competition than she meets Saturday. She gives either three or six pounds to her rivals in the Bryant but has rateable speed and is ideally drawn in post 5 with a solid-looking recent local work pattern for her return to Prairie Meadows.

Repeal is the 5-2 second choice on the morning line, but Beer Can or, better yet, Mayan Sky could fill out the exacta. Both fillies exit races at Will Rogers Downs, which has proven this May and June to be a productive launching ground for horses racing farther north in the middle of the country. Beer Can tried to run early with Flat Out Speed when they met last summer at Prairie Meadows, but her connections appear to be molding her into a pressing or stalking type. Mayan Sky finished a creditable fourth last out facing older foes in a $15,000 conditioned claimer, and merely repeating that performance can land her a top-two finish.