Gulfstream News & Notes: Code of Honor Seeks Redemption in Fountain of Youth

By David Joseph —-

Gulfstream News and Notes

Code of Honor Seeks Redemption in Fountain of Youth
Undefeated Global Campaign Worth the Wait
Cookie Dough Returns to Action in Davona Dale (G2)

HALLANDALE BEACH, FL – Code of Honor went to the starting gate at Gulfstream Park Jan. 5, carrying the lofty expectations of a betting public that made him an odds-on choice in the $100,000 Mucho Macho Man, the first stakes of the year on the Road to the $1 million Xpressbet.com Florida Derby (G1) March 30.

The bettors’ high hopes were quickly deflated when the W.S. Farish homebred colt turned in a flat performance to finish fourth in the one-turn mile stakes for 3-year-olds following a less than ideal start.

Code of Honor will seek to redeem himself in Saturday’s $400,000 Xpressbet.com Fountain of Youth (G2), which will headline a 14-race program highlighted by nine graded stakes at Gulfstream. Sired by Noble Mission, a multiple Group 1 stakes-winning full brother to undefeated European champion Frankel, Code of Honor will be making his debut around two turns in the 1 1/16-mile Fountain of Youth.

“You would think it would help him. We’ll have to wait and see, but I’m looking forward to running him two turns,” Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey said.

Prior to his disappointing Mucho Macho Man performance, Code of Honor finished second in the Oct. 6 Champagne (G1) at Belmont Park, closing from dead last after a tumbling start to finish three-lengths behind front-running favorite Complexity..

“It was a very impressive race. I thought if we had got off good that day we probably would have put a little pressure on the winner. We wouldn’t have been so far back. I thought they’d be other stuff going with him anyway, but they didn’t. He got kind of hung out to dry,” McGaughey said. “When he stumbled, the kid [Eric Cancel] was patient with him and let him get his feet back under him, and he made a huge move.”

Although the Kentucky-bred colt, who was scratched the morning of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) at Churchill Downs Nov. 2 due to a fever, has had slow starts in his last two races, McGaughey isn’t concerned.

“I think it was just circumstances. He stumbled leaving the gate in the Champagne and I think he got squeezed a little bit here and he kind of rushed up there a little bit, which is probably not what he wants to do,” McGaughey said. “I think we’ll take a little different angle there and just left him run his race Saturday.”

Code of Honor shot right out of the starting gate in his debut at Saratoga last August on his way to a front-running victory.

“He had worked really well. Mark Casse had a horse in there [Wild Medaglia D’oro] that had finished a good solid second in his first start. I had watched him run. I didn’t know he we could beat him or not but we did,” McGaughey said. “When he had come up to me two or three times we worked him on the training track and he worked really well.”

Code of Honor has had a series of seven workouts at Payson Park in Indiantown, FL since his disappointing Mucho Macho Man effort, and McGaughey reports that he is training aggressively for his return to action under Hall of Famer John Velazquez.

Undefeated Global Campaign Worth the Wait

It took a while for Sagamore Farm and WinStar Farm’s Global Campaign to get to the races, but the bay son of Hall of Famer Curlin has been nothing but perfect heading into his toughest test yet in Saturday’s Fountain of Youth at Gulfstream Park

Based with trainer Stanley Hough at Palm Meadows, Gulfstream’s satellite training facility in Palm Beach County, Global Campaign was targeted to be unveiled last fall in Kentucky but the plan was scrapped due to a bruised foot.

Instead, the half-brother to multiple Grade 1 winner Bolt d’Oro out of the A.P. Indy mare Globe Trot debuted in a seven-furlong maiden special weight Jan. 5 at Gulfstream, winning by 5 ¾ lengths in 1:24.49 while wrapped up by jockey Luis Saez.

Hough brought Global Campaign back in an entry-level optional claimer Feb. 9, when he cruised by 2 ¼ lengths, again under a hand ride, in 1:44.29 for 1 1/16 miles, the distance of the Fountain of Youth. The Fountain of Youth was won in 1:44.17 last winter by eventual Grade 1-winning sprinter Promises Fulfilled and 1:44.25 by $4 million earner Gunnevera in 2018.

“He had some little 2-year-old stuff that set him back. It took a while to get him back going again, but he’s a very talented horse,” Hough said. “His first race was very nice and even his last race, even though the time wasn’t that fast, it was very impressive. Just the way he does things is very impressive.”

Global Campaign has worked twice since his most recent win, going three furlongs in a bullet 36.40 seconds Feb. 17 and five furlongs in 1:01.85 Feb. 24. Saez returns to ride from Post 8 in the field of 11 at 116 pounds, six fewer than co-highweights Signalman and Vekoma. He is listed at 10-1 on the morning line.

“He’s doing really good. It’s going to be a lot tougher,” Hough said. “It’s going to be a very tough race [but] he’s going to have to get challenged one of these days.”

The Fountain of Youth is a race yet to be won by Hough, a winner of more than 2,000 career races and member of Calder’s Hall of Fame who returned to training last summer after six years away from the backstretch. He worked as an adviser for Sagamore, and helped pick Global Campaign out of Keeneland’s 2017 September yearling sale, where he sold for $250,000.

“It’s been good,” Hough said of his return to South Florida. “I’ve been back here right along, but training has been good. We do have some young horses. I was involved with buying them and we do have some where it’s kind of exciting to see them though.”

Cookie Dough Makes Return to Action in Davona Dale (G2)

Arindel homebred Cookie Dough, knocked from a start in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) last fall with a fever, will face the runaway winner of that race in Eclipse Award champion Jaywalk when she returns to the races in Saturday’s $200,000 Davona Dale (G2) at Gulfstream Park.

The one-turn mile Davona Dale will be the first race for Cookie Dough since Sept. 29, when she completed a sweep of the final two legs of the Florida Sire Stakes for juvenile fillies in the $400,000 My Dear Girl at Gulfstream. In her prior start, she was an easy winner of the $200,000 Susan’s Girl – the two victories achieved by 14 combined lengths.

“Everything has been good. By choice, this race would be a couple more weeks down the road, but it’s not, so we go. I was training knowing when the race was, so the schedule had to be accelerated. She hasn’t run since September but I couldn’t ask her to be training any better than she has,” trainer Stanley Gold said. “When you get one with pneumonia, just to get them back to the races you’ve got to be happy. She seems unfazed, so we’ll see.”

Gold won the 2010 Juvenile Fillies with eventual champion Awesome Feather, and ran third with 30-1 long shot Blonde Bomber in 2017. He was looking forward to trying Cookie Dough, but she got sick shortly after arriving at Churchill Downs a week ahead of the race.

Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey, who shares a Gulfstream barn with Gold during the Championship Meet and has Code of Honor entered in the Fountain of Youth, was forced to scratch Code of Honor from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) with a fever the morning of the race.

“It was just bad luck. It’s nobody’s fault, just bad luck. Shug’s horse [Code of Honor] got sick when he was there, too,” Gold said. “It just turned out to be unseasonably cold the day that we got there and then next day. She got there, she walked a day, she galloped one day and galloped great. By that afternoon you knew something was wrong and it was downhill after that.

“She caught pneumonia and she was in a clinic up there for at least two weeks, plus three or four or five days at Churchill. She came back and had to get some more time off and when she was ready to go to the track she came back here,” he added. “I’d like to have a little bit more time but there isn’t more time. Everything’s been good. It’s like we’re running in a Breeders’ Cup with a smaller purse, but that’s the way it goes. We’ll see what happens.”

Cookie Dough rejoined Gold’s string in mid-December and shows six works over Gulfstream’s main track for the Davona Dale. At 20-1 in the program, she will be ridden by Jeffrey Sanchez from Post 2 in the field of seven.

Gulfstream Park is a Stronach Group company, North America’s leading Thoroughbred racetrack owner/operator. The Stronach Group racetracks include Santa Anita Park, Gulfstream Park & Casino, Golden Gate Fields, Portland Meadows, Laurel Park and Pimlico Race Course, home of the world-famous Preakness. The company owns and operates the Palm Meadows Training Center in Florida, and is one of North America’s top race horse breeders through its award-winning Adena Springs operation. The Stronach Group is one of the world’s largest suppliers of pari-mutuel wagering systems, technologies and services. Its companies include AmTote, a global leader in wagering technology; XpressBet, an Internet and telephone account wagering service; and Monarch Content Management, which acts as a simulcast purchase and sales agent of horseracing content for numerous North American racetracks and wagering outlets. The Stronach Group is also a leading producer of social media content for the horseracing industry. For more information contact David Joseph at david.joseph@gulfstreampark.com or call 954.457.6451.