“I thought he looked great,” Shug McGaughey said of his 2019 dual Grade 1 winner. “We’re just getting him started and he went off easy, finished up well, galloped out great and came back in good order. We’ll come back next weekend and get a solid work into him.”
Code of Honor’s development has been enjoyable to watch, from Gulfstream Park last winter to his head-bobbing nose defeat in the Jockey Club Gold Cup in which he was placed first by the steward’s following a bumping incident in deep stretch.
The Oct. 12 breeze was an easy half-mile move in :50.65 over a fast main track at Belmont Park. It was his first work since the Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes.
As stated, McGaughey will do more next week. “[This] was just something to get him going again, and I’ll come. [Following that] we’ll come back the next weekend and blow him out and then send him to California and run.”
Twelve 3-year-olds have won the BC Classic and half of those became the divisional champion as a result, chronologically Arrogate, American Pharoah, Curlin, Tiznow, A.P. Indy and Sunday Silence.
Of those, only American Pharoah and Sunday Silence won the Kentucky Derby in the same season.
