Sometimes the numbers sneak up on you. Shug McGaughey, for instance, is already having his best money-winning season in nearly a decade, and his 63 wins from 372 starts through the end of November is the most since 1995. McGaughey will concede that the purses in his wheelhouse of New York and Kentucky have soared, but the winners don’t lie, as the trainer continues to emphasize quality over quantity in a career that began in earnest in the 1980s, with such big-shouldered Thoroughbreds as Easy Goer, Seeking the Gold, Vanlandingham, and Personal Ensign.
Celestial City, a son of Uncle Mo owned and bred by Stuart Janney III, has held up his end of the McGaughey stable this year with nine starts, nearly $350,00 in earnings, and a recent grade 2 victory in the Hill Prince Stakes (G2T) over the turf at Aqueduct Racetrack. That 9-furlong race was good enough to put the colt on a plane to Del Mar, where on Saturday he will try to win the Hollywood Derby (G1T) from 10 opponents, including grass convert Wit , from the Todd Pletcher barn.
If the Derby is sounding like an East Coast field trip, stir in two runners from Graham Motion to go along with the seven local runners. The mile and one-eighth test always has been ripe for the taking by invaders, especially since it was rescued in 2014 by Del Mar from the rubble of Hollywood Park. Chad Brown has won three of the last six, plus another by Tony Dutrow with the dazzling Mo Town . In its last batch of renewals at Hollywood Park, the Derby went to horses trained by John Gosden, Bill Mott, Barclay Tagg, Tom Bush, and McGaughey himself, who won it in 2004 with Good Reward, a son of champion and Hall of Famer Heavenly Prize. Shug trained her, too.
That’s pretty much par for the McGaughey course. When a young horse arrives at his doorstep he usually can tell you everything about his dam, his granddam, and assorted siblings. Celestial City is out of the Malibu Moon mare Lunar Evening, who represented a third generation of females handled by McGaughey.
The star of the family, so far, has been Hymn Book, a half brother to Lunar Evening who won the 2012 Donn Handicap (G1). McGaughey was asked if little brother gives him similar vibes.
“Hymn Book was a different story,” McGaughey said. “He ran terrible first time, so I cut him. He came back in a maiden thirty on an off track at Monmouth and he won way off. He ended up winning just short of a million dollars.
“Hopefully, Celestial City can follow in his footsteps,” McGaughey said. “But Hymn Book was a dirt horse, and Celestial City told us from the start he wanted turf. He’s been nice and sound physically and takes his races well. I was ready to back off after a race at Saratoga, but he told me he wanted to keep going, and he ended up winning the Hill Prince.”
It’s no surprise the trainer is looking forward to a turf campaign next year with Celestial City, who could be joining a troop of prime McGaughey fillies at the top of the game.
Kathleen O., winner of the Gulfstream Park Oaks (G2), made her first start in more than six months in the Nov. 25 Comely Stakes (G3) at Aqueduct and finished a close second. Skims, winner of the Sands Point Stakes (G2T), is being pointed for the American Oaks (G1T) at Santa Anita Park later this month, while Pleasant Passage, a daughter of More Than Ready who was an admirable second to Meditate in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies Turf (G1T) at Keeneland, has nothing but upside. McGaughey trained her dam and granddam as well.
“She’s getting a little rest at Ocala right now, then we’ll bring her back next year,” the trainer said. “Hopefully she’ll be good enough to compete in the filly races going long on the grass around New York.”
At 71, McGaughey clearly is showing no signs of slowing down. And why should he? Once the subject of Celestial City and the other stable stars were dealt with, he went out of his way to tout the prospects of a pair of 2-year-olds making their first starts this weekend in New York: Joe Allen’s homebred Battlefield Park by War Front runs Saturday, while Courtlandt Farm’s Allamericanbeauty, a $700,000 yearling by Into Mischief , runs Sunday.
Then on Monday, Dec. 5, McGaughey starts his suspension.
Such a headline rivals “Man Bites Dog.” McGaughey was cited in Kentucky for a post-race test from the colt Smokin' T exceeding the allowable limits of acepromazine, a tranquilizer that sometimes takes longer to clear than the recommended withdrawal times. The test cost McGaughey $500 and a 30-day ban, which was reduced to 15 days because of his record of only three violations since 1983.
“We did all the due diligence we could and couldn’t come up with the answer,” McGaughey said. “We questioned our vets here and in Kentucky and everybody in the barns at Belmont and Churchill Downs. We even got down to the blacksmith. The horse got shod the week before he shipped, and sometimes you’ll give a bad acting horse a tranquilizer. But he’s not, and it wouldn’t have been acepromazine if he’d needed something anyway. It would have been something short-acting.
“So we’re at a loss for words, but I’m not one who’s going to appeal this, or appeal that,” McGaughey added. “Obviously, it was in the horse’s system. I’ll take my lumps and hope nothing like that happens again. I’m here in Florida, so I guess I’ll sit around and rest, make some phone calls, play a little golf, and maybe get in some fishing.”
