Honor Code takes it easy in Saturday breeze

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – Honor Code got to stretch his legs a bit when breezing an easy and slow half-mile in 52.49 seconds at his regular training time of 6:30 a.m. Saturday at Saratoga. Honor Code picked up the pace a little once passing the wire, galloping out five furlongs in 1:06.04 before pulling up six panels in 1:18.33.

The work was just the second for Honor Code since his incredible performance last month in the Whitney Stakes, in which he rallied from nearly 20 lengths off the pace to run down the pacesetting Liam’s Map and register a neck decision for his second Grade 1 win in a row. Honor Code also won the Metropolitan Handicap with an equally scintillating performance at Belmont Park nine weeks earlier.

“It was slower than I wanted him to go,” trainer Shug McGaughey said of Saturday’s work, which was Honor Code’s first in two weeks. “But he went fine, traveled fine, came back fine, so it was okay. He’ll ship to Belmont on Tuesday, and I’ll do a little more with him next weekend down there. Probably put Javier [Castellano] on him for that work.”

McGaughey said he still is considering either the Kelso Handicap or the Jockey Club Gold Cup for Honor Code’s next start but is leaning toward turning him back in distance to run in the one-mile Kelso. Both races are Oct. 3 at Belmont.