Syndicate Provides Piece of Derby Action : Horse racing: Pasadena investor will cheer for Summer Squall in Blue Grass Stakes today.

When Summer Squall runs in the $250,000 Blue Grass Stakes at Keeneland today, Michael Morphy will be sitting at home in Pasadena with his telephone off the hook.

Morphy is one of 28 investors in Summer Squall, the heavy favorite in the Blue Grass Stakes, one of the last prep races for the Kentucky Derby May 5. If Summer Squall wins against a tough field today, he will vie for favoritism at Churchill Downs with unbeaten Mister Frisky, who won the Santa Anita Derby for his 16th victory.

The Blue Grass will be run early in the afternoon, California time, and the telecast will be delayed in Los Angeles.

“The gag rule will be in effect,” Morphy said. “I’m going to watch the race on television as though it’s being run for the first time.”

In 1968, Morphy was a man ahead of the times. He and some friends, who wanted to own a few horses without investing heavily, formed a racing syndicate and pooled their resources to establish a stable of about 15 horses.

They called the group the Impossible Stable, and five years later, when the syndicate was dissolved, they had virtually accomplished the impossible. Every syndicate member received a 173% return on the original investment.

At about the time the Impossible Stable was being formed, Cot Campbell, an Atlanta advertising executive and former sportswriter, was putting together some racing syndicates in Georgia.

Campbell’s venture, called Dogwood Stable, had such investors as Mickey Rooney, Jane Blaylock and Bill Talbert, and now, after racing horses that have won 75 stakes races, one of that syndicate’s horses has a strong chance to win the Kentucky Derby.

Summer Squall has overcome a cracked bone in his leg, as well as a bleeding problem, and will be shooting for his seventh victory in eight starts in the Blue Grass.

Morphy, who at the time was an executive for a cement company, heard about the Dogwood idea and visited Campbell in Atlanta.

“We had dinner and swapped war stories about syndicates,” Morphy said. “Cot seemed to be the ideal kind of guy to be involved in something like this: He had honesty, he had integrity, and he had a lot of intelligence.”

Morphy has been involved in some other Dogwood syndicates that produced winning horses, but nothing of the caliber of Summer Squall, who has won five stakes and earned $600,000.

Morphy paid $55,900--$13,900 down and the rest in two payments that were due by the end of last year--for a 1/40th interest in Summer Squall and four other yearlings that Campbell had packaged. Some of the investors own more than one of the 40 shares.

Besides Morphy, other Californians in the partnership are Frank McGinnis, Toby and Willi Hilliard, Dick Roberts, Neilson Brown and Bill Pfau. Will Farish, who bred Summer Squall in Kentucky, bought in after the Storm Bird-Weekend Surprise colt won the first race of his career, by 11 lengths at Keeneland a year ago.

“This type of investment is the only sensible way to get involved in racing, and I’m surprised there aren’t more syndicates like Dogwood,” said Morphy, whose family has owned the same box at Santa Anita since the track opened in 1934.

Clover Racing Stables in Pasadena is a more recent entry in the syndication business. Clover won last year’s Santa Anita Handicap with Martial Law and is racing Prized, winner of last year’s Breeders’ Cup Turf and earner of more than $2 million.

“The only way someone like me could afford to be involved with well-bred horses is through a syndicate,” Morphy said. “It would be next to impossible to get lucky if you bought just one or two ordinary horses. And unless you had a lot of money, you couldn’t afford to invest in more than one or two by yourself. I don’t own much of him, but at least I am sitting here with a small interest in what could become a super horse.”

Summer Squall and the four other horses in his syndication package were bought separately at auction for a total of $1.12 million. The most expensive were Summer Squall and Hither, a Nureyev colt, at $300,000 apiece. Hither is unraced.

“Of the five, I thought the best might be the Nijinsky colt,” Morphy said. He was talking about Hitchcock Woods, a $200,000 purchase who ran six times before he recently won at Santa Anita for trainer Eddie Gregson.

The others were Autocracy, an Alydar colt who was a $70,000 yearling, and Zig Zag Zig, by Danzig, who cost $250,000.

Autocracy was claimed away from Dogwood for $12,500 at the New Orleans Fair Grounds and has done better since then, running on grass.

Campbell, 63, is unusually forthright about his horses. Morphy said that Campbell emphasizes to potential investors that the chances of making a profit are slim. When Summer Squall suffered his leg injury last year at Arlington Park, Campbell’s office called several turf writers the day it happened.

Campbell is also known as a demanding taskmaster. Dogwood went through several public-relations directors in its first five years and one of them says: “Cot’s a good guy, as long as you’re not working for him.”

Dogwood’s farm and offices are now based in Aiken, S.C., whence Campbell’s staff assiduously keeps investors informed of almost every move their horses make.

Morphy said: “This week, I got a call about a filly that I also have a small interest in with another Dogwood syndicate. She was entered in a race at Santa Anita. But they told me that the race didn’t fill (not enough horses were entered) and that she wouldn’t be running.”

Several weeks ago, as Summer Squall’s Kentucky Derby hopes brightened, Campbell sent a letter to the 28 investors. It explained that Churchill Downs doesn’t recognize large syndicates and the chances of getting Derby seats for everybody were remote.

“That’s all right with me,” Morphy said. “I went to the Derby once, in 1972, and it’s like going into the Army--after you do it once, you don’t want to do it again. Going to Churchill Downs on Derby day is like going to Del Mar and finding 135,000 people there. I’ll wait for the Belmont. It comes on June 9, and that’s my 58th birthday.”

Horse Racing Notes

Champagneforashley, one of three undefeated Kentucky Derby candidates, scored his fifth consecutive victory Friday, beating other New York-breds by 12 1/2 lengths in the De Witt Clinton Handicap at Aqueduct. Champagneforashley, ridden by Jacinto Vasquez, covered seven furlongs in a fast 1:21 2/5 and is scheduled to run next in the Wood Memorial a week from today. . . . The other undefeated 3-year-olds are Mister Frisky and Wicked Destiny, who will run a week from today in the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn Park.

There’s a chance of rain at Keeneland, which would make the mud-loving Summer Squall an even bigger favorite in the Blue Grass. Others in the field are Unbridled, Shot Gun Scott, Southland-based Land Rush, Top Snob, Slew of Angels and Iskandar Elakbar.