Breeders' Cup Mile: Lynch has strong pair

Oscar Performance didn’t finish the Arlington Million, pulled up in the homestretch after jockey Jose Ortiz felt the colt take a couple of awkward steps. That was Aug. 11. On Sept. 15, Oscar Performance won the Woodbine Mile, running his second half-mile in less than 45 seconds and stamping himself as a serious player in the Breeders’ Cup Mile.

On Saturday at Keeneland, it’s Oscar Performance’s Brian Lynch-trained stablemate Heart to Heart who tries to bounce back. Heart to Heart also raced Aug. 11, breaking awkwardly over a wet Saratoga turf course and never getting involved in the Fourstardave, checking in a well-beaten sixth. He returns to action in the Shadwell Turf Mile, a race in which Heart to Heart finished second in 2017 but only 10th in 2015, a race – like the Fourstardave – where he failed to establish a forward early position over a wet course.

“I’ve seen him do that,” Lynch said. “If he gets to the front and on his own terms, it’s a different story. I’ve completely freshened him up since the Fourstardave. He’s training with good energy, and I would say he’s sitting on a good race.”

A good race would send Heart to Heart on to his second BC Mile and give Lynch two runners in the race. Oscar Performance was to ship this week along with Heart to Heart to Keeneland and will train for the Mile there before shipping to Churchill Downs during Breeders’ Cup week.

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The 7-year-old Heart to Heart, who has earned more than $2 million, looked undimmed by age with Grade 1 wins earlier this year in the Gulfstream Park Turf and the Maker’s 46 Mile at Keeneland, and a second-place finish in the Grade 1 Shoemaker Mile on May 28 at Santa Anita. Heart to Heart finished 10th in the 2017 BC Mile at Del Mar but contested a very strong pace and was beaten only three lengths by the victorious World Approval.

“The pace was suicidal,” said Lynch. “If he maintained those fractions, we’d have been looking at the next Secretariat.”

Heart to Heart hasn’t raced at Churchill since 2015 but is 3 for 3 there, all open-lengths stakes wins in the fall.

Lynch wonders how Oscar Performance will cope with the Churchill course, which is liable to have autumnal cut in the ground. Oscar Performance finished 10th over a wet course in the 2017 American Turf, his only Churchill start.

“The course is my greatest fear with him,” Lynch said.

Oscar Performance had a 2017 campaign geared around longer races, capping it with a fading ninth in the Breeders’ Cup Turf. He sharply won the one-mile Poker in his 2018 debut and confirmed his mile credentials at Woodbine.

“At a mile, if there’s no speed, he can be the speed, and if there’s a lot of speed, he can sit off them,” said Lynch.

Oscar Performance worked five furlongs on soft turf Monday at Belmont before shipping to Kentucky.

“I can’t say enough good things about him right now, but the last time I said that was going into the Million,” said Lynch.

The Shadwell Turf Mile, which will have a large, competitive field, is the last Breeders’ Cup Challenge Win and You’re In race linked to the Mile. It’s one of four races this weekend with Mile implications, the others being the City of Hope Mile at Santa Anita and the Prix Daniel Wildenstein and Prix de la Foret, both at Longchamp in Paris.

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