Honor Code continues training for comeback
Honor Code, knocked off the Triple Crown trail this year with a tear in his right hind suspensory, was scheduled to arrive at the Fair Hill training center in Maryland on Saturday to continue training toward a comeback that trainer Shug McGaughey hopes takes place in the fall.
Honor Code has been based at WinStar Farm in Kentucky, where he has been jogging every other day for a couple of weeks, according to McGaughey.
“I’m going to get him [to Fair Hill] and jog him for four or five days, just to get him used to the track, and then start galloping him,” McGaughey said.
McGaughey was hopeful that Honor Code could be ready for a race like the Discovery, typically run in November at Aqueduct. Last year, Honor Code won the Grade 2 Remsen at Aqueduct in the third and final start of his 2-year-old season. He won a maiden race at Saratoga and was beaten a neck by Havana in the Grade 1 Champagne. In his only start at 3, Honor Code was beaten 10 lengths by Social Inclusion in an allowance race.
Meanwhile, McGaughey said his other top 3-year-old on dirt, Top Billing, remains at WinStar, where he has been turned out. Top Billing was knocked off the Triple Crown trail when he fractured the cannon bone in his right foreleg during a workout at Payson Park on March 8.
“They took the plate out of his leg,” McGaughey said. “They walked him a while until the sutures healed up. He’s been turned out for 2 1/2 weeks, and they want to turn him out for four just to let those holes where the plate was fill in, then he’ll start back into training. I was hoping the first of July, but it looks like the first of August.”
McGaughey said Mr Speaker, the winner of the Belmont Derby Invitational, most likely will make his next start at Saratoga and not in the Grade 1 Secretariat at Arlington Park. McGaughey said the Grade 3, $300,000 Saranac on Sept. 1 is one option.