Maker has top contenders for Prairie Bayou

A full field of older horses, led by an accomplished pair from the Mike Maker stable, will clash under the Turfway Park lights when the $50,000 Prairie Bayou Stakes is run Friday night at the northern Kentucky track.

Fast and Accurate and Camelot Kitten are the Maker duo who figure among a core of favorites in a well-matched renewal of the 1 1/16-mile Prairie Bayou, which goes as the fifth of eight races on a card that starts at 6:15 p.m. Eastern. Post time for the feature is 8:12.

Fast and Accurate won the 2017 Spiral over the Turfway Polytrack for owners Kendall Hansen and Skychai Racing, while Camelot Kitten has earned more than $1 million, all for owner-breeders Ken and Sarah Ramsey. They’ll start alongside each other in posts 3 and 4 as part of a full field of 12.

Into the Christmas break, Maker, the perennial leading conditioner at Turfway in recent years, was deadlocked for the top spot in the trainer standings with Wesley Ward at the holiday meet, both with eight wins. As usual, Maker has his top horses stabled elsewhere for the winter but maintains a full barn at Turfway with John Lynde as his top assistant.

Perhaps the top challenger to the Maker runners is Royal Son, who won the 2017 Prairie Bayou by 7 1/4 lengths. Trained by Kellyn Gorder, the 6-yearold will be returning from a layoff of nearly eight months seeking his fourth win from six local starts.

Other contenders include Nun the Less and Galton, both proven routers, while the presence of speedsters such as Aktabantay, Mojo Man, Lanier, and Rebel Bull promise an honest pace.

This will be the 24th running of the Prairie Bayou, which is named for the gelding who won the Jim Beam Stakes in 1993 prior to finishing second in the Kentucky Derby and winning the Preakness. Prairie Bayou broke down during the Belmont Stakes and was

euthanized. The Prairie Bayou is the last of two stakes at the 21-day holiday meet, which ends Monday with a daytime card (post, 1:10).

The three-month winterspring meet will begin with daytime cards (Tuesday and Thursday), after which a three-day schedule of night racing (Thursdays through Saturdays) ensues through meet’s end, March 30. Six of the nine winter-spring stakes will be run on a March 9 daytime program, led by the Grade 3 Jeff Ruby Steaks.