Point Given Commands Large Syndication Fee

Point Given, retired last month because of a tendon injury, has been syndicated as a stallion for a book value of $50 million, one of the highest prices ever in the breeding industry.

At 50 shares costing $1 million apiece, Point Given falls short of the reported $70-million syndication of Fusaichi Pegasus last year. Fusaichi Pegasus, the 2000 Kentucky Derby winner, set the record for a stallion syndication, surpassing the $40 million that Shareef Dancer brought in 1983.

Many of the shares in Point Given will be retained by his owner and breeder, Ahmed Salman, the Saudi Arabia prince who heads the Thoroughbred Corp. Salman plans breeding many of his mares, including Sharp Cat, to Point Given, who after running fifth in the Kentucky Derby closed out his career with four consecutive victories in $1-million races.

For $1 million, a shareholder in Point Given retains the right to breed a mare to the stallion once a year for the rest of his stud career. Outside breeders will pay a stud fee of $125,000 for a single breeding, an amount that could increase or fall depending on Point Given’s success as a stallion. The stud fee for Storm Cat, the sire of Tabasco Cat, Cat Thief, Sharp Cat and more than 80 other stakes winners, has escalated from $20,000 in 1991 to an industry-high $500,000 next year. Storm Cat stands at Overbrook Farm in Lexington, Ky.

Point Given’s stud career will begin in February at Robert Clay’s Three Chimneys Farm in Midway, Ky., where Seattle Slew and Silver Charm also stand.

“It’s a risk,” Clay said of Point Given’s syndication. “But you know you can’t buy shares in Fusaichi Pegasus, and you can’t buy shares in horses that go to Overbrook. I think there’s a hunger out there for shares in a big horse.”

Zippy Chippy, racing’s most unsuccessful thoroughbred, lost his 90th consecutive race Sunday when he finished ahead of only one horse in a $3,050 maiden race at the Northampton Fair in Massachusetts.

The only horse Zippy Chippy beat in the field of six, Steel Surfing, started buck-jumping through the stretch and didn’t cross the finish line.

Zippy Chippy earned $150. In his career, he has finished second seven times and third 12 times. His purses total $29,317.

Cee Dreams, ridden by substitute jockey Omar Berrio, won the $50,000 E.B. Johnston Stakes at Fairplex Park, finishing 6 1/2 lengths ahead of Feverish, winner of the race the last two years. Berrio replaced Iggy Puglisi, who was still sore after being unseated by one of his mounts on Saturday’s card.

Trainer Bobby Frankel suggested that Lido Palace, winner of Saturday’s Woodward Stakes at Belmont Park, might skip the Breeders’ Cup Classic and be pointed for the Japan Cup in Tokyo at the end of November. It would cost Lido Palace’s owners $800,000 to supplement their colt into the $4-million Classic at Belmont on Oct. 27. “Financially, [Japan] makes sense,” Frankel said. “You don’t have to put up a quarter and you’re running for two-and-a-half-million dollars. And the horse’s odds would be a lot shorter than they’d be in the Breeders’ Cup.”. . . . Numerous Times, a 6-1 shot ridden by Patrick Husbands, won the $1-million Atto Mile in a blanket four-horse finish at Woodbine.