Chancer McPatrick, the two-time Grade 1 winning 2-year-old, emerged from the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile last November with a couple of issues that will delay his return to the races at 3, but trainer Chad Brown still has hopes of getting him on the Kentucky Derby trail. Brown said that Chancer McPatrick had “a tiny flake” surgically removed from a front ankle shortly after his sixth-place finish in the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile, a race from which he also came out of with a quarter crack on a hind foot. Brown said that Chancer McPatrick could return to the work tab by the end of the month at his winter base of Payson Park and if all goes well, he could make his 3-year-old debut in the Tampa Bay Derby on March 8. That race – which Brown won last year with Domestic Product – could be a prelude to the Grade 1 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland on April 5, which Brown won last year with Sierra Leone. :: Get Gulfstream Park Clocker Reports from Mike Welsch and the Clocker Team. Available every race day. “He had a tiny flake in his ankle. We decided to take it out after the Breeders’ Cup and gamble we could still make the Triple Crown,” Brown said. “Although it wasn’t bad, it looked new out of the Breeders’ Cup. I didn’t want to have to deal with it in the summer time in case it did bother him so we took it out.” At 2, Chancer McPatrick won the Hopeful at Saratoga and Champagne at Aqueduct – both Grade 1 stakes – before his sixth-place behind Citizen Bull in the Juvenile. Those two victories helped make Chancer McPatrick a finalist for the Eclipse Award in the 2-year-old male division, an award that is expected to go to Citizen Bull. Meanwhile, Brown said he will nominate Treaty of Rome, runner-up to Guns Loaded in the Mucho Macho Man Stakes at Gulfstream on Jan. 4, and the Aqueduct maiden winner Uncle Hulka, to the $250,000 Withers Stakes at Aqueduct on Feb. 1. Since Uncle Hulka’s maiden win came at 1 1/8 miles, Brown does plan to start him in the Withers, run at the same distance. Meanwhile, Aviator Gui, nose loser to Poster in the Grade 2 Remsen on Dec. 7, could return to the work tab this weekend at Payson Park after missing some time due to illness. His next start is yet to be determined. :: Want to learn more about handicapping and wagering? Check out DRF's Handicapping 101 and Wagering 101 pages.