OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Before trainer Shug McGaughey ships Code of Honor and the rest of his stable to South Florida for the winter, he will have ample action in the upcoming bevy of stakes being run at Aqueduct.
McGaughey will try War Cabinet on the dirt in Friday’s Grade 3, $200,000 Comely Stakes for 3-year-old fillies at 1 1/8 miles. A daughter of War Front, War Cabinet has made all five of her starts on turf, winning once.
OZONE PARK, N.Y. – Code of Honor, the Grade 1 Champagne runner-up who was forced to scratch from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile on Nov. 2 due to a temperature, is on schedule to run in the Grade 2, $250,000 Remsen Stakes at Aqueduct on Dec. 1, trainer Shug McGaughey said Monday.
On Monday, Code of Honor was credited with a half-mile work in 49.66 seconds over Belmont Park’s main track.
McGaughey said he had Code of Honor out five furlongs “in 1:01 and change.” The work came just four days after Code of Honor worked three furlongs in 37.23 seconds.
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Dallas Stewart was an integral part of the D. Wayne Lukas operation when Lukas was winning training titles left and right in Kentucky in the 1980s and 90s, so being the leading trainer at the Churchill Downs fall meet wouldn’t necessarily be a big deal to Stewart.
“It would be great, but we’ll just show up every day and do our job,” Stewart said. “The main thing is to develop horses, get them in the right spots, and hopefully win races.”
LOUISVILLE, Ky. – This may really happen. A 20-year-old with only a little more than a year of experience is poised to become the leading jockey at the Churchill Downs fall meet, which would mark just the second time an apprentice has pulled such a feat at this ancient track.
DEL MAR, Calif. – Trainer Christophe Clement has Malthael nominated to the Grade 3, $100,000 Cecil B. DeMille for 2-year-olds at Del Mar on Sunday, but said that’s only a backup plan in case he can’t run on the turf in a maiden race at Aqueduct on Wednesday.
“It’s been that way since July,” Clement said. “If the race goes, you throw a party, and if it stays on the turf, you throw another party.”
DEL MAR, Calif. – Firm turf and graded stakes are a good exacta for trainer Michael Stidham, who will send west the older horse Synchrony and the 2-year-old filly Elsa for Saturday races at Del Mar as the fall turf festival starts to kick into high gear.
Trainer Brad Cox won his 1,000th race when Play On took the fifth race Sunday at Fair Grounds.
Cox, 38, hit the milestone early in his career. A Louisville native who went regularly to Churchill Downs as a kid and started walking hots on the backside there as a high-schooler, Cox long harbored dreams of becoming a trainer – and has become a bracingly successful one.
There will be sizable carryovers in the pick six and the NYRA Bets Pick 5 on Wednesday at Aqueduct after Miss Mystique closed out the Sunday card with a $71 upset.
Sunday was the third straight day the pick six was not hit at Aqueduct. The Wednesday carryover will be $263,298. There was a carryover of $50,898 into the Sunday races.
Five winners on Sunday paid $655 for $2.
The NYRA Bets Pick 5 carryover on Wednesday will be $37,290.
Pavel, winner earlier this year of the Grade 1 Stephen Foster at Churchill Downs, remained in Kentucky after the Breeders' Cup and worked five furlongs in 59 seconds on Sunday at Keeneland in preparation for the Champions Cup at Chukyo Racecourse on Dec. 2.
"We're going to try and make him a dual-continent Grade 1 winner," trainer Doug O'Neill said Sunday at Del Mar.
