Turfway Park: Knights Nation deserves attention in first stakes start in Prairie Bayou

Knights Nation is not a very big horse, but don’t tell him that.

“He’s got a big heart,” said Wayne Mackey, who trains Knights Nation for retired Louisville businessman Brad Ray.

Knights Nation, a 22-1 winner of a bottom-level maiden-claiming race at Keeneland in April, has come so far in the last eight months that he deserves a close look when making his stakes debut Saturday in the $50,000 Prairie Bayou Stakes at Turfway Park in northern Kentucky. The 3-year-old gelding is entered off back-to-back allowance victories at the Churchill Downs fall meet.

“He’s been a big surprise the way he’s really improved as the year’s gone along,” said Mackey, who is based at the Thoroughbred Center training facility in Lexington, Ky. “He seems to get a little better every time we run him.”

Knights Nation will have Roberto Morales back aboard when he breaks from post 6 in the 19th running of the Prairie Bayou, which is run at 1 1/16 miles on Polytrack. Among the opposition are a handful of seasoned older horses, including Occasional View (post 3, Victor Lebron), Dreams Cut Short (post 5, Ben Creed), Depeche Chat (post 7, Channing Hill), and Burn the Mortgage (post 8, Albin Jimenez).

Occasional View was claimed for $100,000 at the Keeneland fall meet by Ken McPeek on behalf of owner Robert Trussell. The 5-year-old gelding ran a big second in the Grade 2 Autumn on the Woodbine Polytrack in his lone try for the new connections.

“This is probably my last starter of the year,” McPeek said by phone this week from Oaklawn Park, where he will have a full barn of 36 while also maintaining a 20-horse stable in south Florida. “We think he’s a really nice horse and we’d like to end the year with a stakes win.”

Present Course, drawn on the rail after winning four straight races at Mountaineer, all for trainer Jeff Radosevich, was supplemented to the Prairie Bayou for a $2,500 fee.

In all, 14 are entered, but only 12 can start, with Villandry and Polaris relegated to an also-eligible list.

The Prairie Bayou, the eighth of nine Saturday races and the last of two stakes at the holiday meet, is named for the ill-fated gelding who in 1993 won the Turfway showcase (then known as the Jim Beam Stakes) before running second in the Kentucky Derby and winning the Preakness.

First post is 1:10 p.m. Eastern, with the feature set for 4:33.