Heart to Heart will have company out front in Fort Lauderdale

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – The pace should be an honest one when eight turf specialists square off in Saturday’s Grade 2, $200,000 Fort Lauderdale at Gulfstream Park.

The Fort Lauderdale is one of two graded turf stakes on the 12-race card, along with the Grade 3 Marshua’s River. A third scheduled stakes, the Grade 3 Skip Away, was canceled after failing to draw sufficient entries.

Heart to Heart has won four of his five starts over the Gulfstream Park turf course, with his lone local setback coming a year ago in the 2017 Fort Lauderdale when he finished a tiring fourth behind Flatlined. Heart to Heart is at his best when able to shake loose on the lead, but he figures to have plenty of company during the early stages of the 1 1/16-mile Fort Lauderdale with One Go All Go, Shining Copper, and Shakhimat all signed on for the race.

Heart to Heart succumbed to similar pressure in his last start, the Breeders’ Cup Mile, when forced to contest a brutal pace from the outset. To his credit, Heart to Heart still held a clear lead exiting the furlong grounds before gradually giving way, finishing 10th in the 14-horse field but only three lengths behind race winner World Approval.

“The heat was on in the kitchen from the get-go,” trainer Brian Lynch said about the Breeders’ Cup Mile. “They got the half in 45 [seconds]. You’d have to be a super horse to finish coming off those early fractions. The margin wasn’t so bad. He got beat by three lengths for everything. In the grand scheme of things, he ran very, very big to hang on as well as he did off the fractions he had to carve out early.”

Irad Ortiz Jr. will be reunited with Heart to Heart, whom he guided to a wire-to-wire 1 1/4-length triumph in the Grade 2 Bernard Baruch Handicap last summer at Saratoga.

Shining Copper forced Heart to Heart’s pace and likely cost him the race when the pair last met in the 2016 Maker’s 46 Mile. Heart to Heart gave way to the late-running Miss Temple City to finish second in the prestigious Grade 1 event at Keeneland. Shining Copper has since been shifted to trainer Mike Maker’s barn and brings a two-race win streak into the Fort Lauderdale that includes a wire-to-wire decision over yielding ground in the Grade 3 River City Handicap in his 2017 finale at Churchill Downs.

One Go All Go also is at his best when clear on the lead, as he was when dropping a neck decision to Tasit under allowance conditions here Dec. 31. Two weeks earlier, One Go All Go chased Shakhimat to no avail when tiring to be eighth in the Grade 3 Tropical Turf.

Shakhimat is another not lacking in early speed, an asset he’s used to capture two of his last three starts, including the Tropical Turf by three-quarters of a length to close his 2017 campaign for trainer Roger Attfield.

The expected lively pace should enhance the chances of stretch-running All Included, who comes off what looked like a much-needed try when he weakened late to be fifth in the Tropical Turf ,1 3/4 lengths behind Shakhimat. That was his first start in nearly seven months. All Included rallied from last to capture the Grade 3 Appleton here last winter and also came from the rear of the field to finish third, beaten just a length, seven weeks earlier in the Grade 1 Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap.

Team Colors also does his best running from behind as evidenced by his fifth-place finish in the River City when making his first start since being transferred to trainer J.K. Sweezey during the fall. Team Colors remains winless, however, since registering an allowance victory here nearly two years ago.