Honor Code may target Hal's Hope Stakes following allowance win

HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla. – Honor Code, fresh off an impressive allowance victory over the weekend, will arrive at his winter home at Payson Park on Sunday and could make his next start in the Grade 3 Hal’s Hope on Jan. 10, trainer Shug McGaughey said Wednesday.

McGaughey, who was not present at Aqueduct when Honor Code rallied from nearly a dozen lengths off the pace to post a one-length decision over Maleeh on Saturday, was impressed by the performance, for which his star received a career-best 106 Beyer Speed Figure.

“He had trained really, really well, so we expected him to run well,” McGaughey said while watching the first six members of his Gulfstream Park-based contingent walk off the van and into the barn Wednesday. “Six and one-half furlongs wasn’t the best place to start him back, but it was the only place, and I was very pleased how professional he was, with everything he did.”

Honor Code was sidelined by a suspensory injury following his only previous start at 3, a second-place finish behind Social Inclusion under allowance conditions at Gulfstream on March 10.

“We started him back at Fair Hill, and he came to me at Belmont around the eighth of October,” said McGaughey. “He’s grown up in a lot of ways, both physically and mentally, and I think if everything stays together, the future is in front of him. We haven’t made any concrete plans, but the logical places to run here this winter would be the Hal’s Hope and Donn Handicap.”

The Grade 1 Donn will be run Feb. 7.

McGaughey also said that Top Billing, the second of his 2014 Kentucky Derby prospects sidelined by injury during the spring, will winter at Payson and could be ready to launch his comeback around the first week of February.

McGaughey will be in action during the early stages of the 2014-15 championship meet. McGaughey said he plans to run Tokyo Time in the South Beach Stakes on Dec. 13 and the 3-year-olds Ironicus in the Tropical Park Derby and Party Now in the Tropical Park Oaks one week later.