Heart to Heart to be a short price in El Prado; Sandiva goes in South Beach

Two turf stakes will be run about an hour apart and help round out a terrific Saturday card at Gulfstream Park in south Florida.

The El Prado and South Beach, both $100,000 races scheduled for 7 1/2 furlongs, are the last of five stakes on an 11-race card that begins at noon Eastern. The other three stakes carded for earlier in the day will be run on the main track.

Here’s a quick rundown of the turf stakes:

◗ El Prado (race 8, post 3:32): There’s no doubt Heart to Heart will be a solid favorite for trainer Brian Lynch and jockey Julien Leparoux when facing seven older horses. After all, the 5-year-old Ontario-bred is a multiple graded stakes winner who is closing in on the $1 million mark with a 10-for-24 lifetime record, and he’s favorably drawn on the rail.

A devil’s advocate, however, might say there’s sufficient opposing speed to soften up Heart to Heart from the opening bell, given the presence of the uncoupled Bill Mott duo of Songsational and Go Around – not to mention Little Baltar and Security Risk, a last-out wire-to-wire winner going a mile on the Aqueduct turf for Shug McGaughey.

Might all this be enough to set the table for Flatlined or Reporting Star? The latter won the El Prado last December at a $5.80 mutuel and has shown a particular fondness for the Gulfstream turf.

“It should set up for him if he runs his race,” said trainer Brendan Walsh, who has been reunited with Reporting Star after turning over the 6-year-old gelding for the summer to Elizabeth Voss. “His form tailed off a bit after he won the Appleton last April, but the one thing he does seem to love is Gulfstream. We’ll see if he still has an appetite for it.”

◗ South Beach (race 10, post 4:34): The filly-and-mare counterpart to the El Prado won’t have quite as big a favorite as Heart to Heart, unless there’s a groundswell of support for Sandiva, a Todd Pletcher-trained mare who has run huge over the local course without fail.

In five starts over the Gulfstream turf, Sandiva has won three stakes, including the Grade 3 Suwannee River in February 2015 and the Grade 3 Marshua’s River last January. She also finished in the money in back-to-back renewals of the Grade 2 Honey Fox.

Unraced since late July, Sandiva has been pointed to another Gulfstream campaign, with six breezes at Palm Beach Downs recorded in anticipation of her return. The Irish-bred mare will have Javier Castellano aboard when breaking from the outside post and facing eight others, assuming the race stays on grass and the lone main-track-only entrant (Mo’ Green) is the only scratch.

Another Irish-bred mare, Tuttipaesi, is among the chief opposition. The winner of the 2015 South Beach for the Valor Ladies syndicate, the gray 6-year-old has breezed three times for Mott at Payson Park since finishing ninth in the Grade 1 E.P. Taylor in mid-October.