Pedigree Profile: Chancer McPatrick
McKinzie's first G1 winner is bred on the popular Street Sense/Bernardini cross and demonstrates linebreeding to La Troienne
With both the Pennsylvania Derby and Cotillion Stakes being won by horses I’ve already covered (see here for Seize the Grey and here for Thorpedo Anna), I decided to dig a few weeks back to cover a horse who became the first G1 winner for my most-anticipated freshman sire of 2024 and is a textbook example of the type of breeding I was hoping to see from McKinzie. Today, I want to discuss Chancer McPatrick.
This Chad Brown trainee was a $725,000 OBS April two-year-old purchase for owner Flanagan Racing, and he’s shaping up to be quite the talent, closing from last on debut to win a 6 1/2 furlong maiden special weight at Saratoga before jumping into the Hopeful and showing the ability to overcome adversity in his first stakes win. The colt was bumped out of the gate, causing jockey Flavian Prat to lose an iron. He settled professionally at the back of the field before ranging up and closing widest of all, hooking up with favored Ferocious and outfinishing that highly regarded runner.
Chancer McPatrick is from the first crop of McKinzie, whose runners seem to be hitting their best stride as we progress into the season. He is now the sire of seven winners from 45 runners, and in addition to Chancer McPatrick, his McKinzie Street finished second in the Del Mar Futurity the weekend after the Hopeful. He is currently ranked fifth by earnings on the freshman sire list.
This colt is the third foal of racing age from his dam, Bernadreamy, a daughter of Bernardini who was a winner of a Churchill Downs maiden special weight in nine career starts. Chancer McPatrick is her first foal of significant quality, as she is the dam of a Daredevil mare who is winner of a $15,000 maiden claiming race in 28 career starts and a Munnings colt who is unplaced in three starts to date. Bernadreamy was out of the G1 Alcibiades Stakes winner Dream Empress, a daughter of Bernstein. The presence of these two stallions in this pedigree is intriguing to me, and I expect McKinzie to continue to see success with horses bred in a similar manner.
The Street Sense/Bernardini cross hardly needs an introduction, as Chancer McPatrick is the third G1 winner on the cross, following Maxfield and Speaker’s Corner, who are both by McKinzie’s sire and out of Bernardini mares. I’ve previously taken a deep dive into this cross, which takes advantage of Street Sense’s success with mares carrying Bernardini’s sire A.P. Indy and/or damsire Quiet American. As I mentioned when discussing McKinzie back in February, what sets him apart from the other exciting young sons of Street Sense at stud in Kentucky is that he is free of A.P. Indy and thus prime to continue this pattern.
In that piece, I mentioned that I would be particularly interested in seeing McKinzie with sons of A.P. Indy from La Troienne’s family 1x, as that is the family of his damsire Petionville. While Bernardini does not fulfill this, I do find it interesting that Chancer McPatrick has family 1x’s Bernstein as his second damsire. Petionville himself carried two crosses of Buckpasser, whose dam Busanda is the fourth dam of Bernstein. Chancer McPatrick is the only starter by a stallion carrying Petionville and out of a mare carrying Bernstein, and the cross of stallions carrying Buckpasser over mares carrying Bernstein has produced 7% stakes winners in 654 starters, a slight increase on the 6.6% stakes winners from all mares carrying Bernstein. It’s difficult to claim with any kind of certainty that this is due to linebreeding to Busanda, but it is worth noting nonetheless. Also, though arguably too far back to have a significant influence, Chancer McPatrick gets an additional source of La Troienne via his fourth damsire, The Axe.
I love that Chancer McPatrick has shown tenacity in his first two starts, although he is shaping up to be the type of horse who might end up pace-dependent. It will be very interesting to see how he develops; I expect he will have no trouble stretching out to longer distances, and he could be an interesting horse on next year’s Kentucky Derby trail.