LOS ALAMITOS, CA—JUNE 19, 2011—Sunday’s Grade 1 $240,000 Vessels Maturity honors the founding family of Los Alamitos Race Course.

Los Alamitos Race Course was established in the late 1940s by Frank Vessels, Sr., a native Kentuckian who made his way west during the Great Depression of the 1930s to seek his fortune in California. Vessels, Sr., made his money in the rough and tumble oilfield construction business during the time when Southern California was booming as a major oil producing region. He would go on to purchase a sizable piece of land near Long Beach, California, land that is now home to Los Alamitos Race Course. Vessels, Sr., faced challenged in his land, as he was unable to grow crops because of poor alkaline soil.

The little bit of grass found in his land contained substances that sickened his small cattle herd. Vessels, Sr.,began to spend more and more of his time attending weekend match races that surfaced in the region during the 1940’s. He was fortunate that his wife Grace, who had been with him every step of the way in the construction business, shared his interest in the excitement of horse racing. His craving for competition assured that he would not only participate, but would soon hold these races at his wide open ranch.

In those less-regulated days, the couple simply put up some bleachers, began charging admission, and let the betting flow. What would later become Los Alamitos Race Course was born. Frank Vessels, Sr., loved his new weekend outlet for fun. It would soon turn into a passion. He began buying better horses, and that eventually led him to want to breed some of his own. Weekend match racing turned into sanctioned pari-mutuel racing at Los Alamitos in 1951, and his desire to breed his own race horses became the foundation for a commercial breeding enterprise.

His grandson, Frank Vessels III (pictured above), was born a year later and as a youth became a farm hand in the stock yards at the track.

"They gave me a shovel and told me to go to work," Scoop Vessels told The Times in 1997. "The nickname stuck."

One Frank Sr.’s first purchases was the legendary quarter horse stallion Clabber, and along the way he stood such great sires as Go Man Go, Duplicate Copy and Tiny Charger.

The next generation, Frank Jr. and his wife Millie, the parents of Frank “Scoop” Vessels III, not only kept the dream alive, bur turned it into something bigger than anyone could have possibly imagined. In one bold move that had been years in the making, Frank Jr. transformed an industry by introducing night racing at Los Alamitos. While seemingly obvious now, at the time it was not an easy decision as he was opposed by virtually everyone of importance, from competing racetracks to local authorities. It is very likely that without his vision and the tenacity to make it happen despite the obstacles, Los Alamitos Race Course would not have survived the onslaught of year round thoroughbred racing in Southern California.

In addition to running and growing Los Alamitos, Frank Jr. and Millie kept Vessels Stallion Farm at the top of the breeding business, and along the way managed to win a number of big races, none more prominent than the 1973 All-American Futurity with his colt Timetothinkrich, later a leading sire in his own right. He imported from Mexico a thoroughbred colt named Beduino, with the idea of crossing him on quarter horse mares. A match racing legend in Mexico, Beduino would go on to become one of the handful of most important sires in the history of the quarter horse breed. Frank Jr. was also an important industry leader of that era, most notably as the co-founder with his friend John Goodman of the University of Arizona Race Track Industry Program, still today the top program of its kind in educating and developing leaders in all aspects of the thoroughbred and quarter horse industries.

Following Frank Jr.’s death in 1974, Millie Vessels took over the management of Los Alamitos Race course and Vessels Stallion Farm. Her stewardship of Los Alamitos was solid and steady. She would eventually sell the track to Hollywood Park for $58 million in 1984. Millie moved the Vessels Stallion Farm base to Bonsall, but the successes continued. Foremost among them, in 1985 she attended the Phillips Ranch Sale in Texas and, uncharacteristically for her, spent the substantial sum of $100,000 to buy a Dash For Cash yearling colt that she would name First Down Dash. Frank “Scoop” Vessels took over the business when his mother died in 1992 and expertly managed the stallion farm that featured the great 1987 World Champion Quarter Horse First Down Dash and a slew of other major stallions in both Quarter Horse and Thoroughbred racing for over 20 years. First Down Dash passed away in November of 2010. He is Quarter Horse racing’s all-time leading stallion.

A distinguished off-road driver, Scoop was a devoted breeder of American Quarter Horses. He was the president of the American Quarter Horse Association from 2004–2005, and was a past president of the California Thoroughbred Breeders Association. On the way, Vessels Stallion Farm campaigned or partnered to race a lengthy list of Grade 1 winners like FDD Dynasty, No Secrets Here, Little Bit Of Baja, Wave Carver, Dash To Chivato, Hateful Hanna, Whole Lot Of Karma, Harems Last Dash and more. Vessels died on August 11, 2010 when the Aero Commander 500 airplane he was piloting crashed just outside of Burns, Oregon. He was 58 years old at the time of his death.

The Vessels legacy carries on thanks to Scoop’s loving wife, Bonnie, and sons Bryan, Kash and Colt. Now four generations strong, the Vessels family is united by their unmistakable love of horses. Bonnie Vessels is scheduled to be on hand to present the trophy to the winning connections of the $240,200 Vessels Maturity at Los Alamitos Race Course on Sunday night.

Courtesy of www.losalamitos.com