Noble Mission building stud credentials with Code of Honor

Despite being a European champion in his own right, Noble Mission has always lived in the shadow of his brother, the unbeaten two-time European Horse of the Year Frankel.

Frankel started his stud career in fine fashion at his breeder Juddmonte’s Banstead Manor Stud in England. But Noble Mission, who was eagerly received to stand at the Farish family’s Lane’s End Farm in Kentucky, has a chance to achieve major notoriety with a Kentucky Derby starter from his first crop in Code of Honor.

Noble Mission was a Group 3 winner going 1 1/2 miles in England as a 3-year-old but turned in his best campaign as a 5-year-old in 2014, winning five group stakes in England, Ireland, and France while aGroup 1-placed in Germany.

He captured the Group 1 Tattersalls Gold Cup in Ireland; crossed the line second by a neck in the Group 1 Grand Prix de Saint-Cloud in France but was elevated to first via disqualification; and concluded his career with a victory in the Group 1 Champion Stakes in England. The campaign earned him a Cartier Award as Europe’s outstanding older horse. All of those Group 1 performances came at 1 1/4 miles or longer.

By then, full brother Frankel was at stud as one of several sons of international titan Galileo in Europe, so the decision was made for Noble Mission to pursue another market, with Lane’s End purchasing a majority interest in the stallion prospect from Juddmonte.

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“Juddmonte Farms has been an extraordinary breeding and racing operation over the years, and we’re thrilled to be a part of this horse,” Will Farish said at the time. “Many of the world’s best stallions are in Europe, and we feel the need to revert to the days of importing top-class European horses to stand in America. We’re confident he can add to the long list of influential stallions like Nasrullah, Roberto, Nureyev, Lyphard, Kingmambo to become a successful stallion here.”

Code of Honor was bred by the Farishes out of the homebred graded stakes winner Reunited, by Dixie Union. The colt went through the ring at the Keeneland September yearling sale, but after he failed to meet his reserve with a high bid of $70,000, the farm put him in training with Shug McGaughey. Grade 1-placed last year as a juvenile, he won this year’s Fountain of Youth and finished third in the Florida Derby.

“I don’t think distance will be a problem at all,” McGaughey said. “[Code of Honor] had a brother who ran two turns in Kentucky, and Noble Mission ran as far as you wanted him to run. He was a mile-and-a-half, mile-and-five-eighths horse. [Code of Honor] is a very efficient kind of horse in the way he moves.”

Code of Honor is one of two stakes horses for Noble Mission, who finished a creditable sixth on last year’s freshman sire earnings list despite his offspring being pegged as later bloomers. Noble Mission’s son Life Mission placed in turf stakes at Kentucky Downs, Aqueduct, and Gulfstream during his juvenile campaign.

Hopes continue to be high for Noble Mission at stud because of the outstanding performance of Frankel, the sire of two-time Japanese champion Soul Stirring, European highweight and multiple Group 1 winner Cracksman, Royal Ascot Group 1 winner Without Parole, and the Group 1 winners Call The Wind, Dream Castle, and Mozu Ascot.