After big effort in loss, Heart to Heart targets Canadian Stakes
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – In the glass-is-half-empty, glass-is-half-full department, credit trainer Brian Lynch with taking the latter approach the morning after Heart to Heart’s troubled third-place finish as the even-money favorite in Saturday’s Tropical Park Turf Stakes.
Heart to Heart threw his head back, giving jockey Julien Leparoux a pretty good shot in the face, while leaving the starting gate for the Tropical Park Turf. He then rated off the early leaders and made a big five-wide run to take command at midstretch before succumbing to late surges from race winner Doctor Mounty and runner-up Your Only Man while beaten just a length despite the unlucky trip.
“He gets a little fidgety in the gate, and when the horse on his inside got fidgety too, it caused him to flip his old head up and bang Julien in the nose when they kicked it,” said Lynch. “But after that, he kind of showed a new dimension. Sometimes he just gives up when things don’t go his way, as was the case here last year, when he reared up at the start of Fort Lauderdale.
“This time, he kind of relaxed and made a nice move to put himself in the race before just emptying out a little bit there at the end.”
Lynch said going in, he felt Heart to Heart “might be a work away from his best” while making his first start since the Shadwell Turf Mile more than three months earlier.
“In a perfect world, I’d have liked to have gotten another nice three-quarters into him before he started, so all things considered, I thought he ran pretty well yesterday,” said Lynch. “You could tell this morning he ran hard. He had himself a good laydown this morning, but everything looks like he came out of the race just fine, and I’m thinking the Canadian could fall nicely into play for him later in the meet.”
The Grade 3 Canadian will be decided at a mile over the turf here on March 2.
Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey sent out Doctor Mounty to upset the Tropical Park Turf and afterward was upbeat like Lynch when looking back on Code of Honor’s disappointing fourth-place finish as the odds-on favorite a week earlier while making his much-anticipated 3-year-old debut in the Mucho Macho Man Stakes. Code of Honor is now back at Payson Park training center in Indiantown, Fla.
“He came back fine. I was up there [Saturday] morning, and he’s doing well,” said McGaughey. “I was disappointed in the race, but in truth, I wasn’t all together surprised. The work before Johnny [Velazquez] worked him the final time, he worked good, but the girl didn’t gallop him out far enough, and maybe he didn’t get enough out of it.
“He’s not a big horse, and I was afraid to really pump into him since he’s been away for a while. The track was also tiring on the day of the race, and to tell the truth, he’s the kind of horse who probably wants to be a little further back and make one sweeping move even though he won his first race on the lead.”
McGaughey said he plans to work Code of Honor this week, with the Grade 2 Fountain of Youth on March 2 likely next on his schedule.
