GOING GOING GONE : Quarter Horse Auction Helps Make Ownership a Possibility at Everyone’s Level--Almost

To understand why owners, breeders and trainers flock to the Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Assn. Yearling auction, one must first realize the significance of the belt buckle.

Gold and silver plated, large enough to show home movies on, the Western belt buckle holds back bulging bellies and is emblematic of the top echelons of the quarter horse world.

They come to Los Alamitos Race Course because, with one well-placed bid, this simple hunk of metal can become a billboard. An also-ran owner can become an established one.

“Indigo Illusion, 1983 AQHA 2-year-old filly of the year,” marks the midway of Jerry Windham’s 6-foot 7-inch frame.

Windham’s belt, with enough gold braiding to make Liberace envious, is as big and prestigious as they come. He bought Indigo Illusion for $7,000 and sold her two years later for $1 million. Before the sale, Indigo Illusion had made Windham more than $700,000.

Everyone at last Sunday’s sale spoke about Windham’s purchase. They all hoped that another Indigo Illusion might be among the 140 or so horses for sale. It’s just that little matter of finding it.

Which brings us to lesson No. 1 in choosing a quarter horse: breeding and confirmation.

The quarter horse fraternity, like any other, has a language of its own. Breeding and confirmation are basic terms. If a book was published which translated quarter horse jargon into English, breeding and confirmation would be right there with water and doctor . Breeding is simple enough. One simply traces the horse’s background and looks at the success of his or her relatives. Beduino is a hot sire these days. His offspring are bringing a high price. Normax, a brown filly sired by Beduino, brought the highest price Sunday--$65,000.

But no quarter horse buyer worth his weight in belt buckles would be fool enough to buy a horse on breeding alone. You need confirmation. This simply means looking at the horse.

Each buyer has a preference about how a horse should look. Some like big horses, others like smaller ones with well-defined muscles. However, most agree the hoofs should point straight and the knees should be unmarked and smooth.

But the only sure thing when buying a horse is that nothing is for sure.

Joe T. Hudgins bought Normax. He spent more than $200,000 at Sunday’s sale. He spent $275,000 at another auction the week before. Joe has a lot of liquid income. That’s black liquid as in Texas oil. Joe owns a few wells near El Dorado, Tex.

But Hudgins didn’t seem too happy after the sale. He didn’t seem too down, either. He had spent more than $200,000 for a few horses, and he knew as well as anyone that it didn’t give him any better chance of success than the guy who spent $1,500.

“Buying horses at an auction is like waiting on an oil well,” Hudgins said. “You take your chances. I guess about 2 or 3% of the horses I buy ever run in a race. It’s a big gamble.”

There are a lot more people ready to take the gamble these days. Quarter horse racing, long the poor cousin of the thoroughbreds, is cashing in on its casual, less-expensive reputation.

The day before the auction, a seminar for new and interested owners attracted a large crowd at the track. Those attending were told that they could buy and maintain a quarter horse for about the same price as a powerboat. They were informed of the $7,000 Windham spent three years ago, and were told that what happened to him could happen to them.

“I think a lot of these people enjoy the feeling of owning their own sports franchise,” said Jim Brennan, general manager for the PCQHRA. “The can become mini-Gene Autrys.”

But the most promising news for the prospective buyers last Saturday came from Marjorie Everett, chief operating officer of the Hollywood Park operating company, which owns Los Alamitos.

People had long speculated that she would have Los Alamitos Race Course leveled and put up condominiums. But Saturday, she told the crowd that after some adjoining land is sold, structural improvements will begin at the track.

“It’s the best thing she could have said,” said trainer Caesar Dominguez, as he eyed a filly at the auction. “Look at all the people here. Her speech gave a lot of people a new confidence that quarter horse racing is going to be here for a while. It was tough for a while, not knowing, but everyone seems real enthusiastic now.”

Dominguez, well-known for his knack of taking horses with limited ability and making winners of them, was in demand by a lot of new owners who wanted to know just what to look for.

One couple, Rick and Valerie Evans of Studio City, own three horses that Dominguez is training. But they didn’t look the part of quarter horse owners. No cowboy hats, no boots, and, worse, no belt buckles because (gasp!) they didn’t wear jeans.

Rick, 30, wore a white tennis shirt with a pair of orange corduroy shorts and tennis shoes. Valerie was similarly attired. Rick owns an architectural salvaging company.

Young, wealthy . . . yes, the two are Yuppies. Another distinguishing characteristic, of Rick anyway, was his tendency to talk with his hands. Making large swooping movements with his arms, he said the worse thing to do when buying a horse is to look at it.

“These are beautiful animals,” he said. “Just look (right-arm swoop). A horse that sells for $2,000 (left-hand gesture) looks just as good as one that sells for $20,000 (double-arm swoop).”

Evans was sitting in an auction audience, motioning frantically with his hands and arms. Can you guess what happened?

That’s right, Rick’s thrashing was quickly misconstrued as a bid.

Valerie was the first to notice that one of the ringmen, part of the auction crew that stands among the crowd and actually takes the bids, had taken Rick’s bogus bid. She didn’t get too excited, just let out a little breath, like it was her last.

Ringmen, like Richard Patterson of San Clemente, are paid to get people to bid. They are positioned strategically around the barn, trying their best not to blink. They search their assigned section wide-eyed, encouraging people to put just another $500 on the what-could-be-the-next Indigo Illusion.

“Sometimes we try to match one owner against another, get them competing,” Patterson said.

Sometimes the auctioneer, high in his perch, will even stop the proceedings to tell someone he thinks he should bid more. At one point, senior auctioneer Tom Caldwell stopped to talk to a man hesitant to go on with his bidding.

“Partner, it’s a fact that there has never been a recorded suicide by anyone who owned a yearling or a untried 2-year old horse,” he said. “I’ve seen you trying and missing all day, I’d hate to think you’re going to give up when you’re so close.”

The man bid $20,000, unfortunately the horse was sold to someone else for $25,000.

Missed again.

Twenty thousand dollars was 10-times what Charlie and Colleen Smith had budgeted to spend. Colleen loves horses. When she was 16, she sold water filters over the phone to buy her first horse. She and Charlie are starting up a breeding farm. Unfortunately, Colleen keeps getting too attached to her horses to let them go.

When Windham sold Indigo Illusion, he said it was a little tough to say good-bye, but it was business. Millie Vessels, the previous owner of Los Alamitos Race Course, said she learned a hard lesson about getting too close to her horses.

“After seeing one of them destroyed on the track and selling another that I was very fond of, I decided it was just too painful,” she said. “I don’t get close to them anymore.”

Colleen might learn that lesson later. But now she loves horses. She and Charlie had spotted a little filly to which Colleen was rapidly becoming attached. Fillies eventually become baby-carrying mares, and Colleen especially loves mares.

“I get closest to them,” Colleen said. “This one looks very nice. Her owner has been bad mouthing her. I don’t think there will be a lot of interest, so I think we can get her for $2,000.”

As the time approached for the filly, Color Copy, hip number 99, to take her place on the block, Colleen was quiet and apparently calm.

“I’m not nervous because I know we can only spend so much,” Colleen said. “If we can’t get her for that price . . . well, that’s that.”

Hip number 88 was called. Colleen lit another cigarette. Charlie had left to take one last look at the filly and returned with the bad news that a lot of people had taken an interest.

“Hip Number 90.”

“Now, I’m nervous,” Colleen said.

When hip number 99 was finally led into the ring, Colleen’s eyes widened. She took a long drag on her cigarette as the bidding started at $1,000.

Quickly it went to $1,500, but stabilized. Charlie looked like he was ready to put up some money. But, like a brush fire, the price jumped to $2,000 then $2,500, then $3,000 . . .

Just like that, Mr. and Mrs. Smith had lost their horse.

Colleen said she wasn’t disappointed, lighting up another cigarette.

“But she was beautiful, wasn’t she?”

The bidding was too high for the Smiths. However, it was not high enough for actor/quarter horse breeder Robert Mitchum, who brought three horses to the sale and only came away with $3,500.

He was not happy.

“This is depressing,” Mitchum said. “Especially when you know the horses back on the ranch are still eating.”

At least Mitchum’s horses received bids. Some went without so much as a word. It’s not that the auctioneers didn’t try. They so feverishly went about their hawking that you’d think they were getting a piece of the action.

Tom Caldwell started auctioneering in 1947. His father and grandfather had been auctioneers. He is robust and never seems to be lacking for something to say or the breath to say it. A week before he had sold a thoroughbred yearling for $13.1 million.

“You can’t think of it as real money,” Caldwell said. “You have to think of it like money in a Monopoly game. You’d get too nervous if you thought about all the money you were dealing with.”

Caldwell’s sons, Scott and Cris, following along in the profession, spelled their father during Sunday’s auction. The Los Alamitos auction took about six hours to complete. More than 140 horses came up for sale, 25 horses an hour. In a little more than two minutes, Tom and his sons had to give the horse’s family history, start the bidding, try to carry the price higher with their machine-gun delivery and occasionally stop in the middle to scold the audience for not paying more attention to the fine equine specimen before their eyes.

“You’ve got to keep things moving,” Caldwell said. “If you don’t, people could lose interest. That’s death for us. We have to keep people interested. It may not be this horse, but the next horse that will be right for them.”

But all things must come to an end, even auctions. When the last horse was sold, the auction’s surroundings were folded up as quickly as a shopping mall carnival.

In a little more than six hours, $802,000 worth of horses had been sold.

Tom Caldwell and company will be in Del Mar next week for a thoroughbred auction. They never stop. Forty horse auctions a year from coast to coast. Their schedule is almost as hectic as Tom’s bidding call. Joe Hudgins had a lot more horses, a little less money, and he still didn’t know if he had a winner.

Rick and Valerie Evans came just to look, and, instead, were looked at because their clothes just didn’t fit in. They bought nothing, but much to Valerie’s dismay, came awfully close.

Charlie and Colleen Smith came with $2,000 and left with it. Colleen said she wasn’t disappointed. But the fact that she repeatedly said she wasn’t disappointed, let on that she was. Colleen loves horses.

They all left Sunday’s auction with something different, but most were hoping for the same thing--a horrendous chunk of metal with an inscription on it.

Another Indigo Illusion.