Honor Code gets first winners

Regally bred champion Honor Code was among the most anticipated sires in this deep freshman class, but was quiet through the first three months of the juvenile racing season, with few runners and no winners. As the calendar turned to July, however, with the major events in the division still on the horizon, Honor Code, something of a late-blooming runner himself, emerged with a vengeance with his first two winners in the span of 48 hours.

Night Code became Honor Code’s first winner when he won his career debut July 11 at Laurel Park for trainer Steve Asmussen. The colt, a half-brother to Grade 1 winner Moonshine Memories, was among his young sire’s most expensive yearlings last season, fetching $500,000 from St. Elias and West Point Thoroughbreds at Keeneland September. Honor Code was among the leaders in his class by yearling average, at $220,782, with prices up to $850,000.

One day later, A Girl Like Me became Honor Code’s second winner as she broke through at Prairie Meadows. The filly had been knocking at the door, finishing third and then second in two prior outings.

Honor Code, from the final crop of leading sire and sire-of-sires A.P. Indy, is out of the stakes-winning Storm Cat mare Serena’s Cat, a granddaughter of Hall of Fame racemare and blue hen Serena’s Song. Honor Code did not make his winning debut until late August of his 2-year-old season. Although he won the Grade 2 Remsen Stakes later that fall, he turned in his best season as an older horse in 2015, with Grade 1 victories in the Metropolitan Handicap and the Whitney to earn an Eclipse Award.