Frank “Scoop” Vessels III
1952-2010

Photo Courtesy AQHA

Frank “Scoop” Vessels III, a bigger than life sportsman, passed away August 11. An accomplished pilot who flew his plane throughout North America and Mexico for many years, Scoop and his friend Sam Cannell had left Redding, California, early that morning bound for an annual fishing trip with friends in Montana. Both men perished when the plane went down on a ranch in southeastern Oregon.

Born in 1952 to Frank Jr. and Millie Vessels, Scoop grew up in Orange County, California, in the shadows of Los Alamitos Race Course. Scoop’s grandparents, Frank Sr. and Grace Vessels, had built the plant from the ground up in the midst of farmland in the late 1940’s. Frank Sr. had started racing on that dusty farmland with a few bleachers, and next came concession stands. Wagering was strictly among those who showed up. A year before Scoop was born, what would become Los Alamitos changed from being a weekend match racing track to a sanctioned pari-mutual racing facility.

Under the direction of the Vessels family, Los Alamitos and the adjacent Vessels Stallion Farm was the beacon that guided American Quarter Horse racing from its infancy to become a major force in horse racing.

Frank Sr. purchased and stood the legendary Quarter Horse stallion Clabber and other stallions at the farm in its Orange County days. Some of those horses included Go Man Go, Tiny Charger and Duplicate Copy. Upon the passing of Frank Sr., the next generation of Vessels took the reins and soon transformed the industry by introducing night racing at Los Alamtios. Frank Jr. quickly proved that he was more than an innovative businessman in operating the race track when he bred one of the Vessels mares to a young Thoroughbred stallion named Aforethought. That mating produced 1973 All American Futurity winner Timeto Thinkrich, a Champion who went on to become a very prominent stallion for the Vessels.

In the early 1970s, Frank Jr. imported from Mexico a famous match-racing Thoroughbred stallion named Beduino. That gray stallion probably changed American Quarter Horse racing as much as any individual horse . . . especially when his blood was mixed with a horse the next generation of Vessels would send to stud in the late 1980s. After the passing of Frank Jr. in 1974, Scoop’s mother Millie headed both Los Alamitos and Vessels Stallion Farm. Millie continued to modernize Los Alamitos. She operated both the track and Vessels Stallion Farm until 1984 when another strong-willed woman from nearby Hollywood Park made the Vessels an offer they could not refuse and they sold Los Alamitos and the five-acre Vessels Stallion Farm.

In the early 1980s, the Vessels purchased several properties in Northern San Diego County around the community of Bonsall, including the historic San Luis Rey Downs Training Center, a nearby golf course and resort and a 2,000-acre cattle ranch that was one of the last remaining intact Spanish land grants. The training center was home to such legends as future Thoroughbred Hall of Fame inductees Charlie Whittingham and D. Wayne Lukas. On the golf course, Scoop honed his skills and he could play with just about anyone. But it was on that old cattle ranch that Scoop would build his legacy.

A good portion of that fertile valley contained the San Luis Rey River. Walking over that acreage and thinking about the past and the future of the Vessels family and their horses, Scoop slowly and methodically laid out the placement of homes and barns and offices and paddocks and then helped design those structures and supervise the construction.

In late 1986, the aging Beduino was among the Vessels horses which moved to the state-of-the-art Vessels Stallion Farm near Bonsall. But it was a horse they left behind in training at Los Alamitos that would change the history of American Quarter Horse racing.

In the summer of 1985, Millie had attended a sale at the Phillips Ranch north of Dallas and purchased a yearling son of Dash For Cash for $100,000. That horse named First Down Dash would earn $857,256 while winning 13 of his 15 starts at two and three. From the American Quarter Horse Association, First Down Dash would earn three Champion titles before his retirement from the track … including the World Champion title of 1987.

And when the sorrel moved to Bonsall to begin his career as a stallion in 1988, American Quarter Horse racing really began to change. Scoop put his young World Champion to stud at a fee that just about anyone could afford, thinking that he would let First Down Dash establish his value and later syndicate the stallion. That first crop of First Down Dash foals hit the tracks in 1991 and Scoop’s intuition proved correct as Royal Quick Dash won the year’s most prestigious race … the $2,000,000 All American Futurity. First Down Dash also had winners of the big race the next two years and Scoop executed his plan to syndicate First Down Dash. Major American Quarter Horse breeders from across the nation joined the syndicate. As though signaling his approval to his friend Scoop, First Down Dash began a total domination of American Quarter Horse racing.

Through the first weekend of August 2010, First Down Dash has sired earners of $72.4 million …and he is the nation’s leading sire of 2010 money earners. At the age of 26, he successfully bred 105 mares this year. The earnings of the offspring of First Down Dash exceed those of his closest rival (his sire Dash For Cash) by more than $32 million. First Down Dash has been represented by the winner of the All American Futurity six times and the winner of the year-end Champion of Champions six times.

With wife Bonnie alongside, Scoop served on several committees of the American Quarter Horse Association. They were a driving force to get more young people involved in racing. And they formed a very successful all-female partnership that led to a group known as “The Girls” owning a Champion runner. Scoop formed a partnership with several members of his Bustardos group from his beloved Rancheros Visitadores and they raced a Vessels-bred runner to a Champion title in 2007. Scoop served five years on the AQHA’s executive committee and one year as its president, a job that took the Vessels across the states and to several foreign countries. Scoop teamed with Braizlian businessman Benny Rossett and in 2006 they won the All American

Futurity with the Vessels-bred No Secrets Here … who earned $1.6 million before retiring. In 1999 and again in 2006 Vessels Stallion Farm was named the nation’s leading breeder. In 2010, he was inducted into the AQHA Hall Of Fame.

Scoop’s horse business also involved Thoroughbreds and he directed the entire breeding career of the highly successful stallion In Excess. Scoop served as the president of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association and is a member of the Jockey Club, the most important body for Thoroughbred racing in North America. Apart from horses, Scoop was a legend in off-road racing. When he was inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2007, he was lauded for scoring at least one victory in every major off-road event, for winning more than 30 races and for winning four overall championships. He was off-road racing’s Rookie of the Year in 1974 and Off Roadsman of the Year in 1978.

Scoop was honored for his business acumen and experience that led to many innovations in racing and his 1980 Baja 1000 win was featured on ABC’s Wide World Of Sports. He was involved in the 1990s with a group that developed NASCAR’s Supertruck Series. He was involved with BF Goodrich in developing the Radial All-Terrain Tire, which he introduced when he won the Baja 500 in 1977 in his propane powered Ford F-150.

Scoop was praised for creating an early alliance between Goodrich, Chevrolet and Mobil Oil that resulted in other major corporations becoming involved in a similar fashion.

The Vessels maintained a home in Baja California that they visited several times a year. There Scoop would enjoy fishing and visiting many interesting people and places around the peninsula. He was proud that son Kash had his love for Baja and off-road racing. Scoop attended Culver Academy in Indiana, where youngest son Colt now attends. Scoop and Bonnie often would attend sporting and equestrian events there as they watched Colt participate.

They watched Colt ride with Culver’s Black Horse Troop in the 2008 inaugural parade in Washington, D.C. But home to Scoop and all of the Vessels is that special piece of ground in Northern San Diego county.

In addition to Bonnie, Scoop is survived by sons Kash, Colt and Bryan… all who reside on the ranch. A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. on Monday, August 16 at Vessels Stallion Farm.

Courtesy of Track Magazine’s Monday Report, Special Edition