Heart to Heart staying local for Artie Schiller Stakes

Technically, last Saturday’s Grade 3 Red Smith Handicap was the last graded turf stakes of the year on this circuit. But Saturday’s ungraded $150,000 Artie Schiller Stakes is certainly coming up like a graded event.

Heart to Heart, a seven-time graded stakes winner and earner of more than $930,000, heads what is expected to be a large field for the second running of this one-mile turf race.

Heart to Heart, trained by Brian Lynch, came off a four-month freshening to win the Grade 3 Knickerbocker by a half-length over Jay Gatsby at Belmont on Oct 10. Lynch was originally thinking of sending Heart to Heart to Del Mar for the $200,000 Seabiscuit Handicap on Nov. 26 and was going to run Grand Arch in the Artie Schiller. But Grand Arch came up with a physical problem that will force him to the sidelines for the remainder of the year.

With that development Lynch feels that an eight-mile van ride from Belmont to Aqueduct might better for Heart to Heart than a cross-country plane flight to California.

“As much as I’d love another trip out to Del Mar, I think it’d be easier on him to just van him over to Aqueduct,” Lynch said.

On Sunday, Heart to Heart breezed a solid half-mile in 49.42 seconds Sunday over the Belmont Park inner turf course.

The Artie Schiller, which has a $50,000 purse increase from last year’s inaugural running, is also expected to attract New York-bred millionaires King Kreesa and Kharafa as well as a trio of runners from Chad Brown’s barn - March, Night Prowler, and Offering Plan. Iron Power, Jay Gatsby, Long On Value, Phlash Phelps, Tapitation, War Correspondent are others expected to run.