Page 130 - July 2019

Los Alamitos – 1970’s
The Prototype of Things To Come by Duane MacKendrick
Frank Vessels Jr., the son of Los Alamitos founder Frank Vessels Sr.
Today, as anyone even remotely associated with Quarter Horse racing knows, Los Alamitos Race Course stands alone. Its story is the story of modern Quarter racing. Its success is Quarter racing’s success. And its future may well be the industry’s future.
In a comparatively brief span of time, the California track has risen from obscurity to become a giant. It has proven to the world that an all-Quarter Horse meeting can not only survive, it can prosper.
When new groups - or states - contemplate joining the ever-expanding Quarter Horse scene, they can look to Los Alamitos and know with certainty that success is attainable. And having a prototype to showcase can be vital for an industry in need of more racing.
On Wednesday, June 9, Los Alamitos
will begin its 25th year of operation with a 79-night meeting. To some people, it means only another place to get some “action.” But to others, and their numbers are increasing, it means an opportunity to enjoy some of the best Quarter Horse racing in the world.
But to Frank Vessels Jr., President of Los Alamitos, it means far more. It has to. Frank is the son of the track’s founder, the late Frank Vessels Sr., and he knows far better than most that the “little track” in Orange County is the direct result of his father’s dream . . . and a dream come true is no small matter.
It began on August 3, 1947. On that afternoon, a Sunday, Frank Sr. presented six non-betting races for a crowd generously estimated at 2,000, who sat on makeshift bleachers in what was actually the backyard of the Vessels ranch.
An auspicious beginning? Hardly. But then, how many of those at Kitty Hawk in 1903 imagined that they were witnessing a step toward the moon?
For the next three years, the betless Sunday programs were continued, and then in 1951 after considerable lobbying in the California Legislature, permission was finally granted for an official 11-day race meeting.
It wasn’t much, but it was a start . . . the foot was in the door.
Complete with pari-mutuel wagering, the meeting opened on Dec. 4 and, needless to say, the Vessels family was all but overcome with enthusiasm. But the smiles turned to frowns soon enough when Mother Nature supplied weather better suited for water skiing than for horse racing, and that first sanctioned meeting went into the record books with a dash of color . . . all red.
Had a dream become a nightmare?
Lesser men might have thought so, and might have thrown in the towel right then. But Frank Sr., moving with the determination only a man of faith can muster, began planning for the next meeting, and the one after that.
Old Sol smiled the next year. Business picked up – it could hardly have gone down after the inaugural – and the color of the ledgers changed noticeably. Los Alamitos was off and running.
And the following year, after nearly 10,000 “fans” showed up for the opening program of the 1953 season, Frank Sr. decided that it was time to make a move . . . and a “real” racetrack was built forthwith on its present site.
Second-guessers, vocal from the very beginning, again predicted that the project was premature. But then, others of that ilk had told the Wright brothers their machine “would never get off the ground.”
Improvements on the newly-constructed track followed, including an addition to the clubhouse in 1955. Then in 1958, the track’s founder
made another bold move, deciding to sell stock
- $2,400,000 worth - in order to build a new
Frank “Scoop” Vessels III, son of Frank Vessels Jr.
128 SPEEDHORSE, July 2019
LOOKING BACK - AN EXCERPT FROM JUNE 1971 ISSUE