Trainer Shug McGaughey Seeks Fourth Travers Score

There have been many memorable performances and players in the Runhappy Travers Stakes (G1), the 150th running of which the New York Racing Association will celebrate Aug. 24 at Saratoga Race Course.

Over at the Oklahoma training track this week, trainer Shug McGaughey has put the finishing touches on William S. Farish homebred Code of Honor for the Midsummer Derby. A score in the Travers would give the Hall of Fame conditioner four victories in the race, one behind the record set by Bert Mulholland (from 1939-63).

Code of Honor will be McGaughey's 14th Travers starter. With three wins, that's a pretty strong strike rate—and his victories rank among some of the most exciting editions in recent times.

McGaughey's first Travers score came with Ogden Phipps' Easy Goer during the summer of 1989. After a historic Triple Crown series with Sunday Silence, Easy Goer made his first start after winning the Belmont Stakes (G1) facing older horses in the Whitney Handicap (G1). With Pat Day up, he easily defeated Forever Silver, then delivered a tour de force in the Travers while dispatching Clever Trevor by three lengths, getting the 10 furlongs in a swift 2:00.80.

Easy Goer tore through the Woodward Handicap (G1) and Jockey Club Gold Cup Stakes (G1) at Belmont Park before his thrilling second to Sunday Silence in the Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) in the dusk at Gulfstream Park.

McGaughey didn't take long notching a second Travers, winning it the following year with Ogden Mills Phipps' Rhythm.

McGaughey's third Travers score was a corker at the Spa 21 years ago. With Mike Smith aboard, Stuart Janney III's Coronado's Quest went wire to wire, but it wasn't easy. The son of Forty Niner barely held off two rivals after an intense final sixteenth of a mile. In a tight photo, Coronado's Quest was a nose better than classic winner Victory Gallop, who finished a nose ahead of Raffie's Majesty.

"I'm looking forward to it," McGaughey said of the Travers. "I was talking with a friend going over to the gate, and I said I was about as excited for this one as I've been in a while."

Code of Honor, elevated to second in the Kentucky Derby Presented by Woodford Reserve (G1) following the disqualification of Maximum Security, was given a break following the Run for the Roses, returning July 6 to own the one-mile Dwyer Stakes (G3).

"I knew going into the Derby, if he didn't win he wasn't going in the Preakness (Stakes, G1) or the Belmont (Stakes Presented by NYRA Bets, G1) because I wanted a 'summer' horse," McGaughey said. "My plans were Dwyer, Jim Dandy (Stakes, G2), Travers. In my mind—I hadn't looked at it—I thought there were four weeks between races and there was only three. I was afraid if I ran him back in the Jim Dandy and ran him back too soon, that it would make two wrongs instead of one. That was why that I waited.

"Another thing is he'd done well with time between his races and he likes training. It wasn't like I was going to have to piddle with him."

Code of Honor is by Noble Mission  out of Reunited, by Dixie Union. He was second in the Champagne Stakes (G1) at 2 and this year won the Xpressbet Fountain of Youth Stakes (G2) and was third in the Xpressbet Florida Derby (G1).

"He's a small, slighter type horse of any of the horses in the Travers," McGaughey said. "He's a late-May foal, and all of the time he was physically and mentally immature. But I think he's caught up now. He looks really good right now—a whole lot better than he did in the spring. I really think his future is in front of him."

As for a fourth Travers win, it would nice for McGaughey to win for a client such as Farish.

"He's been a supporter of mine for a long time, and we've known each other since back in the Warner Jones days," McGaughey said. "He's been a special sort of a friend. Any time you win a race for him, it's special, and especially with a homebred. This would even mean a lot more. This has been a fun ride with him."