Strong, full field for Prairie Bayou

Although the quality of racing tends to diminish during winter at Turfway Park, Friday’s $50,000 Prairie Bayou is a refreshing exception. The race drew a capacity field of 12, plus a pair of also-eligibles, and the body of the field includes graded or group stakes winners Fast and Accurate, Rated R Superstar, Glenville Gardens, and Vettori Kin, along with notable synthetic-track specialists Dac and Royal Son.

“For $50,000, man, that’s a tough race,” said Mike Maker, the trainer of Fast and Accurate, the winner of the Grade 3 Spiral at Turfway last March.

For the 3-year-old Fast and Accurate, the Prairie Bayou represents his first start against older horses. He has been kept in races restricted to his age group throughout 2017, struggling for the most part before taking the Showing Up Stakes on the grass at Gulfstream Park West on Nov. 4.

Fast and Accurate breaks from post 1 in the 1 1/16-mile Prairie Bayou over Turfway’s Polytrack. His jockey Victor Lebron was 8 for 15 riding for Maker at this meet entering this race week.

Royal Son, the 2015 John Battaglia Memorial winner at Turfway, is favored at 5-2 on the morning line, just ahead of 7-2 shots Fast and Accurate and Glenville Gardens. A four-time winner on synthetic, he is at his best at Turfway, where he has won two of three starts, with his only loss coming when fifth in the 2015 Spiral.

Royal Son won an optional-claiming race at Turfway on Nov. 30, defeating fellow Prairie Bayou entrants Lanier, Hinton, and Dac, the winner of the Prairie Bayou the past two years. The victory earned Royal Son a 96 Beyer Speed Figure, a number that exceeds the career-best synthetic figures of his rivals by four points or more.

Royal Son seems poised to sit an outside stalking trip, much like the one he experienced in his Nov. 30 victory, rating just off likely front-runners Lanier and Fast and Accurate.

Dean Sarvis rides Royal Son, a 5-year-old Tiznow gelding owned by Sweet Home Stables and Mark Parkinson and trained by Kellyn Gorder.

Capable longshots at 15-1 on the morning line include class-dropping Vettori Kin, a Group 1 winner in Brazil who likely needed a Nov. 23 comeback at Churchill Downs when ninth in the Grade 3 River City, and Chicago raider Bold Rally, who packs a powerful finish in a race that TimeformUS projects to have a fast pace.