San Patricio makes a statement in Indiana Sires Stakes opener
by James Platz
Last season, San Patricio’s freshman campaign came to a disappointing close after a ninth-place finish in Indiana Sires Stakes competition. On Memorial Day, the trotter made his sophomore debut at Harrah’s Hoosier Park Racing & Casino, turning in an impressive 1:52.4 effort in the opening round of sires stakes at the Anderson oval. The homebred wired the field in his $50,500 split, serving notice that he will be a top contender in the division.
Bred by Tony Holmes and the late Walter Zent, San Patricio is a gelded son of Swan For All out of the Cantab Hall mare Kaikoura. Digging into the trotter’s pedigree, he has a strong family behind him, products of the Holmes/Zent breeding program. Kaikoura is a full-sister to Grade 1 Valley Victory winner Fast As The Wind ($833,274), and her dam, Wind Stroll, is a half-sister to millionaire and world champion Guccio and PASS final victor Lagerfeld ($804,050). Trainer Tyler Butenschoen noted that while the stable has not had many Swan For All-sired trotters in the barn, San Patricio has the characteristics a conditioner desires.
“He’s just very business-oriented on the track,” Butenschoen said. “He’s big, he’s strong. When he’s out there, he’s a great moving colt on the track; good stride to him. And he stays pretty sensible for the most part with things. If we’re racing, he wears a little bit more of a closed up cheater cup just to help keep his attention because he looks around. And then jogging throughout the week, we pull that off of him and let him go with almost an open bridle. He’s got just a real small cut down, can’t see back. He just really relaxes on the track. He’s easy to work with that way.”
The dual-eligible trotter began his career with two consecutive trips to the winner’s circle in 2025, claiming victory at Harrah’s Philadelphia before shipping to Oak Grove to score a Kentucky Sire Stakes leg by more than six lengths with a 1:56.1 clocking. Tangling with Endurance and Silverstein the next time out, he trotted third with a 1:54.1 effort. When racing moved to The Red Mile, San Patricio recorded a fourth-place effort in the opening leg of the Kentucky Championship Series before dropping into the Commonwealth Series to collect a win.
Shipping to Hoosier Park last August, the trotter picked up back-to-back wins in sires stakes action for driver Trace Tetrick. In the first attempt, San Patricio enjoyed a pocket trip before sprinting home to a 4½-length victory in a time of 1:54. Nine days later, the margin was a length and a quarter, this time tripping the timer in 1:57. In early September a pair of breaks in the opening panel took the gelding out of contention in a sires stakes contest. The ninth-place effort was his last charted line of the campaign.
“We were real high on him, really happy with his races there at Hoosier,” Butenschoen said. “We thought he’d be one of the top ones up there and have a good shot in the finals when they came around as long as he stayed that way. Unfortunately, just growing there and some colt soreness kicking in changed our plans for him. He just wasn’t 100 per cent. We talked to owners, and they have some thoroughbred background, and they just wanted to kind of do what they thought was right for him and just shut him down instead of trying to push through with him.”
San Patricio wintered in Lexington before returning to training in Florida. On the track, the sophomore, owned by Tony and Michael Holmes, June Zent, and Timothy Thornton, returned to the form that produced five wins in eight attempts and added $105,150 to his card last season.
“He came back well,” Butenschoen said. “He was turned out at the owner’s farm there in Lexington until he shipped down to Florida and pretty well picked up right where he had left off last year. The qualifiers down in Florida were pretty much just training miles. We like to get a couple lines into them before they come up.”
At Oak Grove, the trainer hoped to get a couple easier starts for his charge before moving directly into sires stakes. He had no such luck as the class for non-winners of $7,500 last four starts or non-winners of eight pari-mutuel races lifetime repeatedly did not fill. Butenschoen resorted to a pair of qualifiers at the southwest Kentucky track before heading to Indiana.
“We had entered him three times down there and unfortunately the non-winners of $7,500 wasn’t filling,” he said. “They had offered to put him in the open and have him draw the inside but we didn’t want to go that way for a 3-year-old making his first start back. There’s some really nice horses racing in the open down there.”
Clocking qualifying wins in 1:57.3 and 1:55.3, San Patricio didn’t disappoint in his debut. Lining up fifth in a nine-horse field, Tetrick placed the favorite on the lead and never relinquished. The duo set the tempo with fractions of :28, :56.2, and 1:25. While his :27.4 last quarter was not the fastest of the group, he crossed the wire with a comfortable length and a half advantage. The 1:52.4 time was more than two seconds faster than the other division, dead-heated by Dan D Man Can and August Salazar.
The sophomore is back in to race Tuesday (June 2) at Oak Grove, drawing into the same class the trainer tried to enter without success prior to the Memorial Day win. The goal is to get San Patricio a start between Indiana Sires Stakes legs, as well as keeping the door open to Kentucky Sire Stakes.
“Looking at the schedule, there’s 17 days before the next sires stake leg up there,” Butenschoen said. “He’s also Kentucky eligible so we figured it would be good to get him a start down there just to make sure he handled that track. He raced there last year so there shouldn’t be any issue with it, but just to make sure everything was good in case we wanted to look at trying to do a leg of the Kentucky Sire Stakes as well as Indiana.”
San Patricio’s full-sister is currently in training, and Butenschoen had high praise for her progress thus far. Named Karamea, the filly is the second foal from the dam, and is physically much different than her brother.
“She is a completely different horse than he is,” Butenschoen said. “Looks nothing like him. Different color, different build, different body, all of that. But she’s very nice on the racetrack. I mean, she’s the kind of horse that anyone would want to drive. When you ask her to go, she goes. You ask her to slow down, you barely touch the line. She’s one of the most drivable 2-year-olds we’ve had in a long time. Just completely different as far as the way they’re put together, but very impressed with the way she handles work so far.”
