Breeders’ Cup Classic: Shug takes different tack with Honor Code

It has been more than 25 years since the celebrated battles between Sunday Silence and Easy Goer, but the memories of what happened in the fall of 1989 are playing into the management of Honor Code as he prepares for his major year-end goal, the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland.

Shug McGaughey trained Easy Goer back then, and he trains Honor Code now. As with Easy Goer in 1989, Honor Code has the Classic as his final objective of the year. But the difference in how McGaughey is managing Honor Code – the nation’s best older horse – compared with Easy Goer is illuminating.

Rather than running in the Grade 1, $1 million Jockey Club Gold Cup on Saturday at Belmont Park, at the same 1 1/4-mile distance as the Classic four weeks later, McGaughey is choosing to run Honor Code on the undercard in the Grade 2, $400,000 Kelso, a one-turn mile.

Easy Goer, by contrast, had his final prep for the 1989 Classic in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, which he won by four lengths. That year, it was run at 1 1/2 miles. After Easy Goer subsequently lost the Classic, the Jockey Club Gold Cup – once run at two miles – was shortened in 1990 to its current 1 1/4 miles.

:: BREEDERS’ CUP 2015: See DRF’s top contenders

McGaughey, in a telephone interview this week, said one of the reasons he chose the Kelso over the Jockey Club Gold Cup is because he believes it will be more beneficial for Honor Code to go from a mile to 1 1/4 miles, rather than running 1 1/4 miles in consecutive races. He has yet to run 1 1/4 miles.

“I want to try to move him forward off the race instead of having to back off after running a mile and a quarter,” McGaughey said.

But he said the memories of 1989 “had a little something to do with it.”

“I remember Whittingham,” McGaughey said, referring to Charlie Whittingham, the trainer of Sunday Silence, “saying that if we ran in the Jockey Club Gold Cup, he’d get us in the Breeders’ Cup.”

Easy Goer’s victory in the Jockey Club Gold Cup marked his fifth straight Grade 1 win dating back to the Belmont, when he ended Sunday Silence’s quest to sweep the Triple Crown. In between, Easy Goer won the Whitney, Travers, and Woodward. It was a résumé that would have won titles as Horse of the Year and champion 3-year-old male in just about any other year. But his loss in the Breeders’ Cup Classic, the third time in four races that Easy Goer lost to Sunday Silence, left him with no year-end honors in 1989.

Weighing all factors, McGaughey thus believes the Kelso is a far more suitable prep. And, to be sure, Honor Code is a brilliant one-turn miler, as evidenced by his victory in June in the Met Mile.

“If I didn’t think he could handle it, I wouldn’t do it,” McGaughey said.

In his lone start since then, Honor Code won the Whitney going 1 1/8 miles.

The remainder of the Kelso field – including Red Vine, third last time out in the Pacific Classic – is likely using the race to try to move along to the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile.

With Honor Code in the Kelso, the Jockey Club Gold Cup will be headed by Effinex, Wicked Strong, and Tonalist. The winner of the Jockey Club Gold Cup will receive a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Classic through the Win and You’re In program.

Honor Code already has earned a spot in the Classic via his victory in the Whitney. The other horses still in training who have earned spots in the Classic through Win and You’re In races include American Pharoah (Haskell Invitational), Beholder (Pacific Classic), Hard Aces (Gold Cup at Santa Anita), and Smooth Roller (Awesome Again).

At present, American Pharoah, Beholder, and Honor Code are considered the top three choices for the Classic. Yet none will be taking what heretofore has been considered a traditional route to the Classic. American Pharoah will not have run since the Travers, and Beholder’s connections smartly gave her an easier final prep by ducking back into a race for females in the Zenyatta.