What does it mean that Secretariat was syndicated?

The reason that people syndicate a stallion for stud duty is to spread the risk of standing him at stud.



If every horse that was a superior racehorse became the sire of superior racehorses when he goes to stud, then breeding horses would be an easy business. But it doesn't always work out that way. Just for example, Spectacular Bid, one of the best Thoroughbred racehorses of the last 50 years, was syndicated for stud for a then-record value of $22 million. He went to stud at Claiborne Farm, which is one of the best Thoroughbred farms in the world. He was bred to some of the best race mares and broodmares in the country, his babies went to some of the top trainers in the country, and he failed miserably as a stallion. He never sired a horse that even came close to his own quality.



People who breed Thoroughbred racehorses have no sentiment when it comes to their bank balances. They don't care how wonderful a horse was as a racehorse, if his babies don't win at the racetrack, they will not send mares to breed to him. And that's pretty much what happened to "Bid." When it became apparent that he was not going to be successful as a sire of racehorses, he was sold to a farm in upstate New York, and he ended up being used as a sire of hunters and jumpers, standing for a very low stud fee.



Syndicating the stallion spreads the risk; usually the owner retains a few shares in him, but selling most of the shares gives the owner a pot of money up front.



Syndicating a stallion is also a way of getting him access to the best mares possible. For the last 20 years, standing a stallion at stud has been a numbers game: the leading first-year sires usually have at least 70-80 foals from his first crop. There aren't many individual owners who have that many mares to breed to a single horse, and at least up until the past few years, breeders were reluctant to support a stallion that they didn't own at least one share in. So to get him the number of quality mares that it usually takes to get him up high on the general sires list, you almost had to syndicate him and sell at least half the shares in the syndicate. (Most stallions are syndicated into something around 40 to 60 shares, with the original owner usually retaining from 20% to 50% of the shares. It used to be that each share gave the owner of the share the right to breed one mare per year to the horse, but nowadays a share is more likely to give the owner the right to breed two mares per year to the horse.)



Right now, the market is changing. People are a lot less willing to pay huge prices to buy a share in an unproven horse, and there are a lot fewer people who are breeding Thoroughbreds than there were just 5 years ago, and people who are breeding aren't breeding as many mares. So the market for stallions has gone down dramatically. People who want to send a stallion to stud are finding that they can't readily syndicate him, and there's a lot of wheeling and dealing that goes on with unproven stallions now.



Prior to the 1960's, the business was completely different: most stallions were owned by the people who bred or raced them, and were essentially "private" stallions. For example, Secretariat's sire, Bold Ruler, stood his entire career at Claiborne Farm as the private property of Wheatley Stable (the Phipps family). You just couldn't buy a breeding to Bold Ruler unless you were a friend of the Phipps family. That was true for most stallions.



Right now, the Thoroughbred breeding business is in the biggest state of change that I've seen it since I started following racing and breeding in the mid-1960's. Things are really shaking down.What does it mean that Secretariat was syndicated?
Individuals purchased breeding rights at a fixed price....which was done (February 1973) well before he rewrote the record books in the Triple Crown and was a tough sell within the industry (as depicted quite well in the recent movie, but delved into much better in Bill Nack's book - "Secretariat: The Making of a Champion," which fully explains why Penny Chenery had to sell 'Big Red' in this manner once his racing career ended at age three, which was part of the deal).
Though there are many reasons, a Syndicate (in most cases) will ensure the utmost care is taken to provide the horse with the best possible care / treatment. :)

Here's an article that will help clarify why Secretariat was syndicated.. worth reading!


http://www.drf.com/blogs/secretariat-cha鈥?/a>What does it mean that Secretariat was syndicated?
It means that shares were sold in the ownership of the horse.



You're selling potential profit, if you more than cover your outlay and still get a good return, all the better for all involved. The horse could just as well break down in training, and never race again or worse. They don't all turn out to be champs on and off the track, and you can never know.
She sold the shares because she needed the money up front to keep her parent's farm out of foreclosure and to finance Secretariat's training and care.What does it mean that Secretariat was syndicated?
THE HORSE WAS OWNED BY THE MAFIA.
group of owners rather than one single owner.