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by Diane Rice
Consistency
Candor
Concern, CARE &
Lowell Neumeyer’s Blueprint for Success in the Sale Ring and in Life
Some people are born with talents, skills and drive that could make them successful in any business they pursue. Only a select few are
born with all that plus a lifelong passion for a particular interest or industry where they strive to excel. That magic combination places those special few in a niche in which they exert a lifelong and indisputable influence.
Lowell Neumeyer, who has managed the Ruidoso Horse Sales for the past three-plus decades, is one of those with the
magic combination.
“I admire not only Lowell’s candor, but
his concern and care for how the horses are presented at the sale,” says Ruidoso Downs President and General Manager Jeff True.
“He aims for a frictionless transaction for all concerned. He’s very concerned about the appearance of the facility and the cleanliness of the stalls. He makes sure that when horsemen get here, he’s ready for the horses. The horses and the horsemen and -women are his priority.
“He’s also consistent in bringing the best horses he can find to that catalog year after year and that has built the sale company into the
business that it is,” Jeff adds. “People who come to this sale are coming to win the All American. That’s the kind of horse they come here to buy, and that’s the kind of horse that Lowell makes sure we have the best of.”
HIS EARLY YEARS
Born in Dimmitt, about 55 miles southwest of Amarillo in West Texas, Lowell was first exposed to horses on the family farm. His first horse, at age 5, was a snow-white Welsh mare he called Snowball.
He attended Dimmitt High School, where he played football for the Dimmitt Bobcats
and also played on the school’s basketball team for the two consecutive years that the team finished as state championship runners-up. After graduation, he attended Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas, for two years, then returned home and went to work. During those years, he did some amateur roping.
He was 21 years old when he started farming and ranching in Montoya, New Mexico, and he attended his first All American Sale in 1974. “I came to the sale back when it
was at the old maintenance barn here at the racetrack,” he says. “I didn’t know anything about pedigrees or racehorses or any of that. I told Don Brooks, a friend in Texas, that
I wanted to get involved and he offered to partner with me. We bought four mares at the Haymaker Sale at the fairgrounds in Oklahoma City and later, we’d bring our yearlings to the sale and they sold real good.”
AN INFLUENTIAL BREEDING PROGRAM
Lowell relates his breeding philosophy as this: Breed the best to the best and hope for
the best. “We never owned more than five mares at one time,” he says. Yet by focusing on quality rather than quantity, they established a successful breeding program that spanned about 15 years in Hereford, Texas.
One of the first mares Lowell and Don bought was Miss Hijo Peggy (Hijo The Bull- Peggy N, Clabber). The 1959 stakes-winning mare earned $11,773 in four years on the track, with a 49-8-13-9 record. Miss Hijo Peggy’s
full sister, Peggy Toro out of Prescott Peggy Joe
“I admire not only Lowell’s candor, but his concern and care for
how the horses are presented at the sale.”
– Jeff True
36 SPEEDHORSE October 2020