SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – At first glance, it appears a bit odd. Chancer McPatrick, winner of the 1 1/8-mile Curlin Stakes here last month, is cutting back in distance while Strategic Focus, third in the Curlin, is stretching out.
Upon further review, however, it makes sense. Chancer McPatrick is a perfect fit for the Grade 1 H. Allen Jerkens at seven furlongs, while Strategic Focus is an interesting player in a short field assembled for the Grade 1, $1.25 Travers at 1 1/4 miles.
Both 3-year-olds are trained by Chad Brown. Chancer McPatrick, a son of McKinzie who brought $725,000 at the Ocala Breeders’ Sales Co. April 2-year-old in training sale, was precocious enough as a 2-year-old to go 3 for 4 and win two Grade 1 stakes.
Strategic Focus, a son of Gun Runner who brought $500,000 at the 2023 Keeneland September yearling sale, was slower to come around. Though he started training in Saratoga in spring 2024, Strategic Focus developed tendonitis after his third workout in June and was sent to the farm. He also had some quirks about him, Brown said.
“I didn’t mind stopping on him because mentally I didn’t think he was going to make it all the way to his first start anyway,” Brown said. “He was just immature."
Strategic Focus resumed training in the fall at Payson Park in Florida but after two workouts in December, signs of tendonitis appeared again and Brown again stopped on him. This time, Brown shipped him to his Belmont Park base. Some of Brown’s most accomplished 3-year-olds – most notably Preakness winners Early Voting and Cloud Computing – spent part of their winters in New York.
Brown said Strategic Focus’s purchase price “is at the high end” of what he spends on yearlings for owner Seth Klarman. While Brown hoped he was buying a potential Triple Crown-type horse, he knew in December that wouldn’t be the case.
“You look at a Gun Runner colt out of a Curlin mare and he’s a good-looking horse, at the point of purchase of course you’re thinking Derby,” Brown said. “Once you own them and put them in the program you got to make a career for them.
“There have been some great horses that missed the Derby and not only won big races at 3, some of them have been champions and gone on to have good careers. What you don’t want to do is rush them and ruin them, so they have no career.”
Strategic Focus won his debut, a one-mile race on April 19 at Aqueduct, rallying wide and from off the pace to win by 1 1/4 lengths. Strategic Focus stretched out to 1 1/8 miles in a first-level allowance here June 6 and though he crossed the wire first, he was disqualified and placed second for cutting over on his stablemate Malarchuk, the stewards believing the incident altered the outcome of the race.
Undeterred, Brown ran Strategic Focus in the Curlin Stakes where, coming to the top of the lane, it looked like he was going to draw off and win comfortably. He didn’t, finishing third, a half-length behind Chancer McPatrick.
Brown said that Flavien Prat, the rider of Strategic Focus, told him that in the allowance race, “not only was he ducking in, he was trying to put the brakes on,” Brown said. “Then he did it again when he made the lead in the Curlin. I do think it’s his head, it wasn’t that he was getting tired at all.”
Brown opted to train Strategic Focus in blinkers and thus far he’s liked the way the horse has trained and has decided to press on to the Travers against dual-classic winner Sovereignty.
"I can’t be sure that it’s going to turn him around, but it’s all sort of making sense a little bit,” Brown said. “He’s always been a little bit of an immature horse, he’s just been a bit of a quirky horse all through his life. He’s not been straightforward, so this is not a reach to think he needs some help here.”
Meanwhile, Brown spent the early part of the year trying to get Chancer McPatrick to stretch out in distance. After a second in the Tampa Bay Derby in March, Chancer McPatrick finished in a dead heat for sixth in the Blue Grass, effectively knocking him out of Kentucky Derby consideration.
Brown cut Chancer McPatrick back to seven furlongs in the Woody Stephens, but the track came up sloppy and he finished in a dead heat for seventh. Not wanting to cut him back to 6 1/2 furlongs in the Amsterdam Stakes, Brown ran Chancer McPatrick in the restricted Curlin and the horse gutted out a half-length victory over So Sandy and Strategic Focus.
“The thing about the horse is he showed a lot of heart, he won doing something he probably doesn’t really want to do, and that put him forward,” Brown said. “He’s come out of the race great and he’s training a lot better now.”
On Saturday, Strategic Focus and Chancer McPatrick will be racing at distances they were meant to run. Now, it’s just a matter if they’re good enough.
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