Chancer McPatrick regains winning form, answers distance question in Curlin

Winless since turning the Hopeful (G1)/Champagne (G1) double as a juvenile, Chancer McPatrick found himself at a crossroads going into Thursday’s $135,000 Curlin S. at Saratoga.

Indeed, trainer Chad Brown had entertained the idea of Friday’s Amsterdam (G2), over the same track and 6 1/2-furlong trip as his debut victory last summer, before opting to give the colt another chance around two turns in the Curlin. So far had Chancer McPatrick’s star fallen that he was viewed as the stable’s secondary hope, with late-blooming stablemate Strategic Focus all the rage as the 3-5 favorite.

But Chancer McPatrick recalled the old adage that form is temporary, and class permanent. Overhauling Strategic Focus and shrugging off a bump from So Sandy, the 4.30-1 shot ended his losing skid and put himself into the mix for the Aug. 23 Travers (G1). 

“I'm glad that we actually chose this,” Brown said. “What's proven is that he really likes a dry Saratoga track now. He's 3-for-3 on a dry track at Saratoga. He showed a lot of heart, as he did in his previous two starts on dry tracks at Saratoga – they were very courageous efforts in his maiden and the Hopeful.

“A very similar outcome, and we'll have to see how he comes out of it. Surely our dream would be to try to get him out to a mile and a quarter and hope for dry weather on Travers Day if he's a horse for course.”

While Chancer McPatrick had loads of back class, but a distance question to answer, Strategic Focus had the opposite profile. The hot favorite was coming off an entry-level allowance score at this course and 1 1/8-mile distance, and the Curlin – restricted to three-year-olds who had not won a graded stakes at a mile or beyond in 2025 – marked his stakes debut.

Strategic Focus appeared on the verge of passing his initial class test. Settled in third behind front-running Crudo through fractions of :24.27 and :48.32, Strategic Focus made his move rounding the far turn. He engaged the leader passing six furlongs in 1:11.59, took charge entering the stretch, and forged clear.

Then Strategic Focus began to tire, and Chancer McPatrick and So Sandy gained momentum. Chancer McPatrick, who had been nestled in a ground-saving fourth, angled out and stayed on relentlessly. So Sandy, who was Crudo’s nearest pursuer before Strategic Focus outmoved him, persevered widest of all to make it a three-way tussle.

As So Sandy drifted in late, he scrimmaged with Chancer McPatrick. The contact sparked all of Chancer McPatrick’s fighting spirit, and the McKinzie colt summoned one last surge to prevail by a head in 1:49.71. 

Strategic Focus checked in another half-length adrift in third. There was a 5 1/4-length gap back to Crudo, trailed by Fountain Lake and Hypnus. Just a Fair Shake was scratched, along with Uncaged, who goes in the Amsterdam instead. 

“The race changed in an instant there, turning for home,” Brown noted. “I thought my other horse (Strategic Focus) was just going to run off the screen. He galloped past the leader, and it looked like he got to the eighth pole and just stopped. And then here comes Chancer, and it was a good battle down to the wire. It seemed like when he got bumped, it emboldened him to come back.”

“It was not a lot of contact,” winning rider Irad Ortiz Jr. said. “It was one good bump very close to the wire. I was looking for him (So Sandy, ridden by Jose Ortiz) because my horse loves to fight, and his horse changed leads, I think, and reacted. We had contact, but it worked out good.”

Jose Ortiz felt that the restrictions on whip use might have been costly for So Sandy.

“It was a little disappointing. I couldn’t whip him late,” Jose said. “He was reacting good to the whip, but unfortunately for the rule, I think I was (at) five or six (strikes), I was close (to seven), so I didn’t want to go over that.”

In any event, So Sandy’s barging with Chancer McPatrick would have brought the stewards into the equation if he’d crossed the wire first.

“Maybe if I win, maybe I get taken down anyways, but I think it was a huge improvement for him,” Jose summed up.

Jockey Flavien Prat expected Strategic Focus to put the race away.

“I thought the trip was good. Crudo was going pretty easy on the lead, so I didn’t want to let him walk. I came around him with a ton of horse,” Prat said, “and we turned for home and kind of just stayed even after that.”

“That one surprised me,” Brown said. “At the quarter-pole, I was making my Travers plans for that horse and all of a sudden, he just flattened out.”

Brown can make Travers plans for Chancer McPatrick, who paid $10.60. The Flanagan Racing runner arguably wasn’t helped by the moderate pace in the Curlin, considering that he thrived as a deep closer off a fast tempo in his first three starts. He could offer more with a better race dynamic.

Chancer McPatrick created an immediate impression with a last-to-first triumph in his Saratoga debut, and he overcame a troubled start to rally in the Hopeful. Again swooping from the clouds in the Champagne around Aqueduct’s one-turn mile, he’d endured checkered fortunes ever since. 

But his ensuing losses all came with plausible explanations. Chancer McPatrick exited his non-threatening sixth in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1) with an ankle issue and underwent surgery. On a tight time frame for the Kentucky Derby (G1) trail, he returned with an encouraging second in the Tampa Bay Derby (G3). Chancer McPatrick was forecast to improve in the Blue Grass (G1), only to wind up last of six as the favorite. It later transpired that he was sick.

Returning to the scene of his Hopeful heroics in the June 7 Woody Stephens (G1), Chancer McPatrick never got in gear on a muddy Saratoga oval. The Curlin re-established him as a divisional player while enhancing his record to 8-4-1-0, $697,785.

Chancer McPatrick was bred in Kentucky by Rigney Racing and sold to his current connections for $725,000 as an OBS April juvenile. His dam, Bernadreamy, is a daughter of Bernardini and Grade 1 winner Dream Empress.