Tag: philip h. iselin stakes

Code Of Honor ‘All Caught Up,’ Returns From Seven-Month Layoff In Saturday’s Iselin

It's not so much a new and improved version of Code of Honor who will make his return to the races in Saturday's Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Stakes, trainer Shug McGaughey said, as it is a more mature one.

Idle since a fifth-place finish on Jan. 23 in the Grade 1 Pegasus World Cup at Gulfstream Park, Code of Honor heads a field of seven for the $250,000 Iselin Stakes, the feature on Monmouth Park's 14-race card that day.

With those seven months off, McGaughey said the 2019 Kentucky Derby runner-up and Travers Stakes winner is now all grown up.

“We gave him a good amount of time off and he has come back strong and he has been training really well at Saratoga,” he said. “I'm looking forward to running him on Saturday.

“He has grown up quite a bit physically with the time off. He was a late foal (May 23) so we were always kind of playing catch up with him. I think he is all caught up now.”

The Kentucky-bred Code of Honor, now 5, looms large over his six rivals for the mile and a sixteenth Iselin Stakes. He has won two Grade 1 races (the 2019 Travers and the 2019 Jockey Club Gold Cup) and five of his six career wins have been in graded stakes. Overall, the W. S. Farish homebred is 6-for-16 lifetime with four seconds and two thirds. His career earnings stand at $2,731,320.

“It wasn't a body maturity thing with him,” said McGaughey. “He was always doing fine. Being a late foal it just took him a little time to catch up. That's the best way I can explain it.”

Code of Honor's 2020 campaign started with a victory in the Grade 3 Westchester Stakes but failed to produce another win in four races after that. But he was third in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, second in the Grade 2 Kelso Handicap and second in Grade 1 Clark Stakes.

“It wasn't a frustrating year but it wasn't exactly what we hoped for after it started out with a win,” said McGaughey. “That's why I'm looking forward to running him again with the time off we gave him.

“He was so close last year. Maybe this year will be the year for him.”

A son of Noble Mission-Reunited by Dixie Union, Code of Honor has proven he can run well fresh, so McGaughey doesn't have any concerns about the lengthy layoff.

“He won his first start. And when he was a 3-year-old he ran in the Dwyer on July 6 at Belmont and then didn't run again until the Travers on Aug. 24,” McGaughey said. “So I think fresh is good for him.”

Code of Honor finished third in the 2019 Kentucky Derby but was elevated to second with the disqualification of Maximum Security. He was also second but placed first due to interference in 2019 Jockey Cup Gold Cup after finishing a nose behind Vino Rosso.

Paco Lopez, well on his way to an eighth Monmouth Park riding title, has the mount.

The rest of the Iselin field consists of West Will Power, Croatian, I'm a G Six, Magic Michael, Phat Man and Brice.

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Forster Looking At Salvator Mile As Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile ‘Win And You’re In’ For Pirate’s Punch

Whatever reservations trainer Grant Forster had about shipping Pirate's Punch from Kentucky to Monmouth Park for the second time in a little more than four weeks disappeared when he put the speedy 4-old gelding back on the work tab.

Disqualified from first place in the Grade 3 Philip H. Iselin Stakes for interference on Aug. 22 at the Oceanport, N.J., track,  Pirate's Punch has maintained the form that saw him cross the finish line a 1 1/2-length winner that day.

So Forster will try again, this time in Sunday's $150,000 Grade 3 Salvator Mile that headlines Monmouth Park's 14-race card, and he will do so with an eye on the future: the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile.

“We were looking for any reason not to come back but he just would not give us any reason not to do it,” said Forster. “He has been absolutely fantastic every day since he has been back in Kentucky after the Iselin and he has answered every question we gave him.

“He deserves the chance to go back and do it again.”

But there's a little more to it this time, Forster conceded.

“We're looking at this race as kind of our win and you're in for the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile,” he said.

Forster, who took over the training of Pirate's Punch from Jeff Mullins last summer, is still looking to add a graded stakes win to Kentucky-bred's credentials. He thought he had one in the Iselin in what was essentially a two-horse race between Pirate's Punch and Warrior's Charge, with Pirate's Punch disqualified from first for interference in the stretch.

“What can you do? That's sports,” said Forster. “Calls go against you in every sport in every country in the world. We were ecstatic with how our horse ran and we felt like we had the best horse that day. So we're back to try to do it again on Sunday.”

A son of Shanghai Bobby, Pirate's Punch shows a 4-3-4 line for 16 career starts, with earnings of $242,751. His appearance at Monmouth Park in the Iselin marked the 10th different track he has raced at over his career and the ninth time in his past 10 starts that he was trying a mile and a sixteenth.

He will be shortening up to a mile for only the third time in his career.

“I think a mile, a mile and a sixteenth, a mile and an eighth … I don't think there is any real specialty to him per se,” said Forster.

The eight-horse Salvator Mile field, he said, “is more well-rounded than the Iselin field was.”

“In the Iselin, Warrior's Charge was the most accomplished horse in the race,” he said. “You look at this field and see a horse like Bal Harbour and I am more worried about him this time than I was in the Iselin. It's his third time off the layoff. There's Top Line Growth, who ran a big number off a layoff. We'll see if he's ready to build off of that or if he will regress.

“With (Grade 1 winner) Valid Point (trying dirt for the first time in his career) you don't know if they're experimenting or if they feel this will move him up. I don't know. He's a hard read.”

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Warrior’s Charge Wins Iselin Via Disqualification

Trainer Brad Cox knows full well how tough graded stakes victories are to come by, so he will take the one by Warrior's Charge via disqualification in Saturday's Grade 3 $200,000 Philip H. Iselin Stakes at Monmouth Park and move on.

With the stewards ruling that first-place finisher Pirate's Punch came in and intimidated Warrior's Charge late in the race at the Oceanport, N.J., track, Cox's horse earned the second graded stakes victory of his career after being placed first.

The 1 1/16-mile Iselin, reduced to a four-horse field after scratches, was essentially a two-horse race with Pirate's Punch, ridden by Jorge Vargas, Jr., and Warrior's Charge, handled by Paco Lopez, running neck and neck around the racetrack.

Pirate's Punch took a slight advantage in mid-stretch before starting to come over inside the sixteenth pole, with Warrior's Charge battling along the rail.

With 30 yards to go, Lopez stood straight up in the irons and effectively stopped riding, finishing 1 1/2 lengths behind the Grant Forster-trained Pirate's Punch. It was another three-quarters of a length back to Bal Harbour.

Final time for the mile and a sixteenth was 1:43.37.

“He (Pirate's Punch) came in on me pretty good,” said Lopez. “I had to steady because of him. I had to completely stand up and stop riding. He came over. I think the stewards did the right thing. I had to completely stop riding my horse. I think my horse was still trying hard.

“I think if had a little room he would have come back to win because he's a fighter. You can see on the head-on how it bothered us and why I had to stop riding. That hole was there and then it closed very quickly when that horse came over on us.”

Gulliver Racing's Phil Bongiovanni, co-owner of Pirate's Punch, saw it differently.

Warrior's Charge, who started his 4-year-old campaign by winning the Grade 3 Razorback Handicap at Oaklawn Park, earned his fifth victory in 11 career starts. The son of Munnings-Battling Brook by Broken Vow is owned by Ten Strike Racing and Madaket Stables LLC.

“Paco had the horse where he needed to be, up close or on the lead,” said Cox. “Pirate's Punch took off after us and I thought we were able to battle back and get in front of him but I'm not sure he ever did, even though he hung in there with him. Maybe we were going to come back. Obviously the stewards thought we were. We were fortunate to come out on the front end of this. The horse that crossed the wire first ran a tremendous race. I honestly thought he was a horse to contend with and he obviously was.

“It's strange, because a couple of more jumps and we're probably third. It was an unfortunate way to win a race, I guess you could say. But we'll take. Now we'll see how he comes out of it.”

Cox said his ultimate goal with Warrior's Charge is the Breeders' Cup Dirt Mile at Keeneland on Nov. 7. He hopes to find one more race before then.

“He will ship back to Kentucky tomorrow and we'll see how he is,” he said. “I think we'll look at one more race (before the Breeders' Cup Mile) but we'll see how he comes out of this first.”

Warrior's Charge paid $3 to win as the 1-2 favorite, dueling with Pirate's Punch through fractions of :24.10 for the opening quarter, :47.46 for the half, 1:11.17 for three quarters of a mile and 1:36.61 for the mile. They were never separated by more than a half-length until the incident in deep stretch.

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