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“Bob had such a memory and a passion for racing. He could remember not only the horses but their breeding, and their producing offspring.”
FORMING THEIR PARTNERSHIP
Bob and Connie, both born and raised in the Los Angeles area, met in 1953 on a blind date arranged by mutual friends. “I was in a social club in high school and every year, we’d rent a house in Palm Springs for spring break,” she says. “When I was in about 11th grade, one of the older club members’ boyfriend came to visit her and she introduced me to him. He said, ‘I’ve got the guy for you!’ but that guy never showed up.
“When we got home, the boyfriend arranged for the four of us to go on a blind date together. Bob and I dated through my senior year of high school; I graduated in 1955 and we got married in October 1955. Our first child was born the following June. Our daughter came the next June while Bob was attending Loyola University, and four other sons followed soon after.”
Bob’s parents were avid racegoers, primarily at Santa Anita, Hollywood Park and Del Mar. “Many of our first dates were to the races, and
it was so much fun to go,” Connie says. “In fact, he taught me how to read the racing forms and I did a high school math project using one!
“Bob had such a memory and a passion for racing,” she adds. “He could remember not only the horses but their breeding, and their producing offspring. He was also an avid reader of anything to do with racehorses; veterinary books lined our office bookshelves.”
As low-cost, high-interest entertainment when Bob and Connie’s children were young, the family took Sunday drives that included having lunch and dinner out while visiting horse farms in the area. “We’d walk around and pet the horses and it was just a delightful experience,” Connie says.
Bob’s passion for racing grew along with his business and their children, and one day after
the kids had grown up and moved on, Bob asked Connie if she wanted to go to a horse sale. “We lived in Placentia, in Orange County, so we went to Los Alamitos and walked through the barns,” Connie
says. “I’ve always had a preference for gray horses and as we walked by one stall, this great big head looked out and it was gray, and I said, ‘Look at this one!’
“He bid on it and won it!” she adds, laughing. When reality set in, Connie asked Bob what they were going to do with the horse; they had no place to keep it. So, Bob found a ranch in Corona, not far from their home, where they put their new Quarter Horse, Lil Bit Blue (Shirley’s Champion-Della Rita, Well Natch), into training with H. L. Hooper.
Bob and Connie became winning owners when the filly broke her maiden in November 1985. In 1991, the mare foaled the Calyx son Bluyx, who won 13 of 45 starts and earned $84,720 over his six-year career under Blane Schvaneveldt.
But winning came with a price: The horses became like Connie’s children. “When one of our foals would grow up and go to the racetrack and get claimed away from us, I’d cry,” she says. “Somebody had just bought my child! I told my husband I didn’t like claiming races and he said,
76 SPEEDHORSE June 2023
Tim Mullen, Coady Photography
Bluyx winning the 1996 Professional’s Choice Claiming Stakes Race.