By Duane Fonseca -
A textbook perfect ride from Flavien Prat and a typically swift finish from Chancer McPatrick saw the pair go from virtually last to first in the Grade 1 Hopeful Stakes (1400m) at Saratoga on Monday.
Chancer McPatrick’s conditioner Chad Brown accounted for five of the 12 races on Monday’s card and finished top among the trainers with 45 wins at the venue, while Prat took his newly-set meet record to a 14th Graded Stakes win and an 18th overall Stakes success.
Brown said: “It means the world. It’s just a magical meet. It’s a meet for the ages, and I don’t know how myself or anyone else could replicate this. It seems impossible.
“My team showed off their talents to be able to train any kind of horse, different ages, surfaces, distances.”
A two-year-old McKinzie colt, Chancer McPatrick had stormed home late in a 1300m maiden event on his only previous career start at Saratoga on 27 July in the company of Prat. And that experience might have helped Prat, who knew turning for home widest with the favourite Ferocious on his inside, he had enough of horse left under him despite Chancer McPatrick having expended a good amount of energy to put himself in a position from where he had a chance of success.
Dallas Stewart’s Smoken Wicked (Ricardo Santana Jr.) had set the pace and led the pack into the straight, but once it got serious in the straight he yielded, doing only just enough to hold on to fourth, a length behind third-placed Incentive Pay (Brown/Joel Rosario).
In the straight though, it was clearly between Chancer McPatrick and Ferocious (Gustavo Delgado/Irad Ortiz Jr.), with the former clearly the better of the two on the day by a half length.
Prat said: “I hit the gate, lost my stirrups. It was pretty bad. The first jump he went right into the starting gate. From there, I regrouped. The way he broke, I lost so much ground, I was basically trying to give him a good race and see if he would make a run.
“When it’s meant to be, it’s meant to be. The break was pretty bad and I never thought from there I could regroup. He did it and he showed that he’s very talented.”
