Manitoba-bred Brachetto stakes his claim as King’s Plate favourite

For the first time in memory, a Manitoba-bred could be one of the favourites for Canada’s most prestigious horse race, the $1-million King’s Plate for three-year-olds, to be run Aug. 15 at Woodbine in Ontario.

Last Saturday, Brachetto, bred by longtime Manitoba owner-breeder Dr. Ross McKague, won the $150,000 Marine Stakes (G3) as the longest shot on the board, beating two heavily favoured rivals and vaulting himself into the Plate favourite conversation for the mile-and-a-quarter classic.

Brachetto is a son of multiple Grade 1 winner Vekoma, who stands for $100,000 at Spendthrift Farm in Kentucky. He is out of McKague’s mare Colorino, who earned more than $200,000 on the track and has now produced nine winners from nine foals.

McKague has owned a racehorse for 52 years. He has bred them for 50. He has a barn’s worth of horses that could have been somebody, and a lifetime of reasons why they weren’t. Last Saturday afternoon at Woodbine, standing on a patch of grass under the trees in the winner’s enclosure of a graded stakes for the first time in his life, the 79-year-old finally got the one that was.

“As far as I’m concerned, from now on it’s gravy,” said McKague.

Born and raised on his farm outside Brandon, Brachetto won the Marine with a determined late rally under talented jockey Ryan Munger after being forced to wait for room on the turn for home.

He collared second choice Magical Factor late and drew out to win by a half-length, with heavily favoured Casson another three and a quarter lengths back in third. Sent off at 18-1 in the six-horse field, Brachetto returned $38.60, $10.30 and $3.60 across the board, and surprised just about everyone except the people who raised him.

“This horse is amazing,” said McKague. “He is unbelievably bombproof.”

That much was proven long before the gate opened. Runner-up Magical Factor, trained by Rachel Halden for Chiefswood Stable, and Casson, owned by Manfred and Penny Conrad and conditioned by Canada’s perennial leading trainer Mark Casse, are the kind of horses whose connections are used to having the trophy handed to them. On Saturday, the people in the paddock had to have McKague’s colt pointed out to them. Nobody knew who Brachetto was.

They know now.

Munger, whom McKague describes as a throwback gentleman who still says “Yes, sir” and “Thank you very much,” had been telling anyone who would listen that the son of Vekoma wanted two turns. He was right. After the wire he was already lobbying trainer Julia Carey to keep stretching him out.

The colt’s temperament is its own headline. Before the biggest race of his life, Brachetto was asleep.

“They had to get him up to bring him over for the race,” said McKague.

While a few others in the race washed out in the paddock, his colt walked the ring on a loose shank, stopping to graze. He has never been sick a day, never taken a lame step, never had a single problem.

“He hasn’t taken a step backwards since he was born,” said McKague.

McKague made his living as a veterinarian, owner of the Brandon Animal Clinic, doing the reproductive work for some top Manitoba thoroughbred farms that no longer exist. He retired 22 years ago. He is a founding member of the Manitoba Jockey Club, one of the longest-tenured members of the Jockey Club of Canada, and this year, the CTHS honoured him for 50 years of breeding thoroughbreds in Manitoba.

He has bred good horses before. Albarino won over $330,000 and 11 races, including the Gold Cup, the R.J. Speers and the Agassiz Stakes, and was Horse of the Year in Manitoba. Brinello also won 11 races, taking the Agassiz four years running.

Brachetto is a different animal, McKague’s first graded stakes winner and the third Manitoba-bred known to win an open graded stakes, after Phil Kives’s Misty Drone, and Escape Clause, bred by Cam Ziprick and Arnason Farms.

McKague has lost five horses he has bred to the claim box for $40,000 apiece. This time, he drew a line: Brachetto would not run for $40,000. He bred Colorino to Vekoma for a $15,000 fee that is now $100,000. He raised him through a Manitoba winter, had him broken to ride by local expert Florent Rivard, and then sent him south to Ocala for foundation building before trainer Julia Carey took over at Woodbine.

“I shouldn’t even have got paid to break this one,” Rivard told him.

McKague was only hoping to hit the board in the Marine Stakes. He came out with a horse he calls “a huge ambassador for Manitoba.” When the race was over, the groom sent a video up to the turf club, where the connections were still celebrating. Brachetto was eating hay and relaxing.

Just another day at the office.

McKague has already turned down four buyout offers for Brachetto from serious people.

“I’m 79 years old,” he said. “What am I going to do with the money? Buy a horse? I already have a horse.”

And a good one.