When McKinzie retired to stud at Gainesway Farm near Lexington in 2021, one of his best selling points was a race record that included grade 1 victories at ages 2, 3, and 4.
As we approach November of his first year with runners, McKinzie already has confirmed perhaps the most commercially important part of his stallion profile—grade 1 success as a sire of 2-year-olds. Through Oct. 28 McKinzie ranked third in progeny earnings ($1,903,723) among what looks like a good group of new stallions, and he ranked first in grade 1 winners with two.
McKinzie has the morning-line favorite in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Fillies (G1) in runaway Frizette Stakes (G1) winner Scottish Lassie and a 10-1 shot in Alcibiades Stakes (G1) runner-up Quickick .
In the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile (G1), Mckinzie is represented by undefeated dual-grade 1 winner Chancer McPatrick . The winner of the Hopeful (G1) and Champagne (G1) stakes is listed as the 3-1 second choice.
Bred in Kentucky by Rigney Racing, Chancer McPatrick is the third foal out of the winning Bernardini mare Bernadreamy. He has been a standout since he was young. He was chosen for Fasig-Tipton’s Kentucky July Select Yearling Sale, an early-season auction that features athletic, well-conformed yearlings. Consigned with Denali Stud, Chancer McPatrick sold for $260,000 to GS Inversiones Hipicas.
He then went to the Ocala Breeders’ Spring Sale of Two-Year-Olds in Training, where he was consigned by Caliente Thoroughbreds, and worked a smooth two furlongs in :21 with great continuation through the wire. That work and Chancer McPatrick’s showing at the barn were good enough for Kimmel and Sallusto, agents, to go to $725,000 to land him on behalf of owner Flanagan Racing.
Sent to trainer Chad Brown, Chancer McPatrick immediately impressed.
“Yeah, I mean, he always showed a lot of promise from the day he stepped foot in the barn. His first couple works were impressive, and we had hoped that as we increase the workload on him, that he’d keep stepping up, and he has,” Brown said in a pre-Breeders’ Cup teleconference. “So we were cautiously optimistic that when we debuted him, we had something that was very special. And he’s never disappointed.”
In three starts, Chancer McPatrick has faced 28 horses, and he has run by them all. He has a patient, late-running style that is somewhat reminiscent of McKinzie’s sire, Street Sense , who won the 2006 Breeders’ Cup Juvenile by rallying from 13th place early. The following first Saturday in May, Street Sense rallied from 19th position after a half-mile to become the first horse to win the Juvenile and the Kentucky Derby (G1).
Chancer McPatrick’s mentality in particular has impressed Brown.
“He’s run like a mature, experienced horse,” Brown said. “He’s endured some trouble, particularly his first two starts, and he was able to overcome it, which you love to see with a young horse. And I’ve just been impressed with this horse every day I’ve seen him.”
Watch Chancer McPatrick’s last-to-first rally to win the Hopeful Stakes at Saratoga Race Course
Recio Not Surprised by Scottish Lassie’s Frizette Romp
Bred in Kentucky by Winchester Farm, Scottish Lassie is the second foal out of the winning Bodemeister mare Bodebabe, a half to stakes winner Windmill, by McKinzie’s sire, Street Sense. Like Chancer McPatrick, she is the first black-type runner out of her mare (though both mares are young).
Scottish Lassie went through the 2023 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, where she was consigned with Paramount Sales in Book 2, a strong placement for her pedigree. Lynwood Stable purchased her for $50,000 in a post-ring transaction.
“She was a filly that was on our radar, but we had a lot of horses we liked that day,” said Lynwood’s Gene Recio. “It was about 5 p.m., and my wife called me from way up on the hill and said I needed to come look at a filly at Paramount that had RNA’d. I said, ‘Are you sure you want me to come way up there?’ She said, ‘Come!’
“So I walked up there, and I looked at her for less than a minute and I said absolutely. She was a smooth, athletic mover and I liked her female pedigree. She didn’t look like a typical 2-year-old sale horse, but she looked like a filly you would want to give a chance to.”
Gene Recio
A few weeks prior to the OBS March Sale of 2-Year-Olds in Training, Scottish Lassie had a work at his family’s farm in Ocala that Recio remembers well.
“I worked her a quarter in company with a Munnings filly who is named So There She Was, who is with Doug O’Neill now and ran third in the Del Mar Debutante. Scottish Lassie, in hand, breezed as well as you could ask a filly to breeze a quarter at that time in her life. It was a freaky work,” Recio recalled. “She did something normal horses don’t do. It wasn’t by design and it was too quick, but we had to walk away with a smile on our faces, knowing we had something.
“She got a little bit of a shin out of that work. She was so talented and worked so well at the farm, after that I didn’t want to push on her at all, so she was a little bit green at the sale.”
Scottish Lassie worked two furlongs in :21 at the OBS under tack show, a fast time, though she struggled to change leads.
“She was Hip 78 on the first day of the first 2-year-old sale of the year. Everyone gave me pats on the back after the work, and then the morning of the sale came, and the vetting was very light on her,” Recio said. “I put a $99,000 reserve on her thinking possibly we’d get that or a tick over. But I knew her value and I wanted to get somewhere close to that.
“(Trainer) Jorge Abreu was the first to walk up right after she RNA’d. I called George the next day and that’s when we did the deal at $85,000.”
Abreu took Scottish Lassie to New York and she quickly progressed, recording her first published work within a month of being purchased. She had several impressive works leading up to her Sept. 2 debut at Saratoga.
Scottish Lassie went favored in her first start, broke a little slowly from the 2 post going seven furlongs, then accelerated and pressed the pace while wide before tiring late and finishing third. It proved to be a key race. The winner, Quickick, also by McKinzie, shipped to Keeneland and ran second in the Alcibiades Stakes (G1).
Abreu kept the faith and entered the maiden Scottish Lassie in the Frizette, where she pressed the pace and drew off to win by nine lengths in 1:36.73.
Scottish Lassie wins the Frizette Stakes at Aqueduct Racetrack
The second-place finisher from her Sept. 2 maiden heat, fellow Juvenile Fillies entrant Snowyte, rallied to finish a distant second.
“I wasn’t surprised by what she did in the Frizette,” Recio said. “She breezed on the farm like she ran in the Frizette.”
Watch Scottish Lassie’s Nine-Length Frizette Stakes Domination
Breeders Like WHat They have seeN
Brain Graves, general manager of Gainesway Farm, said he thought the McKinzie babies looked special from the start.
“We loved the crop we had here on the farm, and we started realizing the ones we saw at other farms were very good as well,” Graves said. “We came out with the tagline, ‘He’s stamping them,’ because we thought they looked so uniform and athletic.”
McKinzie at Gainesway Farm
Positive reports followed at each stage, as McKinzie’s weanlings, yearlings, and 2-year-olds impressed. Those impressions were reflected in McKinzie’s reports of mares bred, which so far have numbered 187, 171, 169, and 185 at an advertised fee of $30,000.
“We are really grateful to the breeders that have supported McKinzie with four full books of mares and our wonderful syndicate members who have supported him,” Graves said. “The pipeline is loaded, and McKinzie is doing his part to reward everyone now. It’s a very exciting time for us all at Gainesway.”
