Point of Entry Scheduled for Surgery

Point of Entry, winner Saturday of the Grade 1, $500,000 Woodford Reserve Manhattan Handicap, suffered a non-displaced condylar fracture of his left-hind cannon bone and will undergo surgery in the next few days at Rood and Riddle Equine Hospital in Lexington, Ky.

Hall of Fame trainer Shug McGaughey said his staff discovered the injury early Sunday morning, and veterinarian Dr. James Hunt came to the barn and performed an X-ray.

“He’ll be on the shelf for a while,” McGaughey said. “How long, I don’t know. We took the bandage off and his ankle was blown up.”

McGaughey said surgery will be performed on Point of Entry by equine orthopedic surgeon Dr. Larry Bramlage. He expects one or two screws to be inserted into the leg.

Bramlage said Sunday afternoon he had examined the X-rays and found the fracture was not a complete separation.

“It does need screws,” he said. “This is the kind of fracture we treat all the time. We expect him to come back and run well. It requires surgery, but it’s a pretty responsive injury.”

McGaughey remains hopeful Point of Entry, owned by the Phipps Stable and Frank Stronach, can return to the races this year in time for the Breeders’ Cup Turf in November.

“I don’t know what the down time is until [Bramlage] looks at him,” McGaughey said. “He said maybe two weeks [in his] stall, two weeks hand walk and them maybe start riding him under tack. But I’m not going to be too hopeful on that. Best-case scenario, maybe we can get a race into him in September. Best-case scenario, maybe the Breeders’ Cup is not out of the question. The intention all along was to retire him at the end of the year. I don’t know whether Mr. Stronach and Mr. Phipps will want to roll the dice and see what happens. If [Bramlage] says it might be a long rehab time, we might have to pull the rug out from under him. I’m hoping, myself, that’s not the case. The primary goal was the Breeders’ Cup.”

Point of Entry, a 2012 Eclipse Award finalist for leading Male Turf Horse, won the 1 ¼-mile Manhattan in a time of 2:02.55 over a yielding course. He has won six of his past seven starts, including victories in five Grade 1 races, with the only loss coming by a half-length to Little Mike in the Breeders’ Cup Turf.