Page 82 - December_2023

HIS RACING ROOTS
Born in Hemet, California, Dino has been
involved in California horse racing pretty much all his life. He and his two brothers, Leon and Magdaleno Jr., grew up on a Thoroughbred ranch where his grandfather was the general manager, his father was the breeding manager, and his uncle was the training manager.
In Dino’s junior year of high school,
his dad, the late Magdaleno Perez, went to work for a Thoroughbred farm in Riverside, California. After graduating from Notre Dame High School, Dino groomed horses for his father for a winter and then decided to go back
to school. He attended Riverside Community College for two years, then transferred to
the University of California-Santa Barbara, where he studied business economics with
an emphasis in accounting. “I worked in accounting for a little while, then decided I needed to get back to the racetrack,” Dino says. So, he enrolled in the University of Arizona’s Race Track Industry Program (RTIP).
After graduating from RTIP, he
interned at Del Mar Racetrack in 1995.
The following year, he began working as a racetrack official there and at Fairplex, Santa Anita and Hollywood Park, where he worked
in various capacities including clerk of scales, placing judge, patrol judge, stewards’ aid, and entry clerk. In 2003, he added Los Alamitos to his resume.
Because of his dedication and abilities, PCQHRA hired him as its new executive director in December of 2003. As such, one of his duties is managing the Los Alamitos Equine Sale each year. “We’ve got a great crew here at Pacific Coast and then we
hire on some temporary employees,” Dino says. “We basically put on and manage the entire sale from catalog creation to entries, collections and so on.”
The last three years, the Los Alamitos Equine Sale has auctioned offff the three highest-selling yearlings in its history with:
So So Beautiful selling for $520,000 in 2021
Allways Remember selling for $300,000 in 2022
Rose Beaukay selling for $320,000 in 2023
William Zuazo, Los Alamitos
William Zuazo, Los Alamitos William Zuazo, Los Alamitos
80 SPEEDHORSE December 2023