The Riccarton trainer has never lined up a 2yr-old - the closest is an early 3yr-old at the Grand National meeting in August - and he only likes training mares.
It is not a bad philosophy - particularly when it pays off in the form of a listed Pegasus Stakes win with Red Dirt Girl at Riccarton on Saturday.
The daughter of Align was in tremendous form last season, winning five from 13, but had gone off the boil this season with a sixth and a 10th in open company in the past two months.
Oddly enough, McCann reckoned a check at the start of yesterday's 1000m dash made all the difference.
''The blessing in disguise was that she was skittled at the start. That made her a bit cranky and away she went,'' McCann said.
''She doesn't need to be up there doing it hard. Unfortunately she's had that speed to be there and has worked hard, but today she was skittled and that was the making of the race for her.''
Red Dirt Girl was steered yesterday by Canterbury apprentice Doni Prastiyou, as the 53kg weight was beyond the wasting abilities of Wingatui jockey Shankar Muniandy. That was the only tinge of sadness for McCann after his first stakes win - ''they didn't have stakes races when I started''.
''I just feel sorry for Shankar that he couldn't do the weight,'' McCann said.
''There was no way I was going to move out of the South Island as far as riders were concerned. He's back on her next start - Doni's only the seat warmer.''
McCann will bypass the group 3 Stewards Stakes on Wednesday, instead opting to prepare the 6yr-old for the listed Hazlett Stakes at Wingatui on Boxing Day.
''She's had a lot of head problems,'' he said.
''I took this option because I have a month or so to get her ready for Dunedin whereas if I ran her in the Stewards and really knocked her, she'd be gone.''
Red Dirt Girl came south from the North Island to McCann's stables in the winter of 2014 but had a ''few funny things'' for McCann to deal with.
''Man, I tell you, I didn't want to know her for a couple of days,'' he said.
''But we worked around her. It takes us 20 minutes to get her on to the track. We leave it to herself and she'll walk five steps, stop. Another five steps, stop.
''I play with her head more than work her hard.''
