Keeneland, Investing in Racing's Future since 1936.
Issue link: https://keenelandmagazine.epubxp.com/i/681141
50 SUMMER 2016 K KEENELAND.COM long view What is your earliest memory of Keeneland? Rogers Beasley: When I was 8 or 9, my mom brought me to Lexington. We were living in Hyden, Kentucky, at the time. My father was medical director for Frontier Nursing Services. We went to Calumet Farm frst, and I remember seeing those shiny brass nameplates of those magnif- cent horses. Then we came to Keeneland. I was like, "Wow!" The color and excitement really made an impression. Later I went to school at Transylvania University (Lexington), and of, course, if you are student anywhere within a radius of 30 or 40 miles, you become enamored of Keeneland. I actually worked as an usher here when I was in college. When did you come on board as an employee? RB: In 1982. I had been a banker and then I became a hotwalker for Mr. Mike Bell, which was a great educational expe- rience. Then Howard Battle hired me to be an entry clerk here and also at Chur- chill Downs. I had other offcial jobs. How- ard and Bill Greely were the two greatest teachers I had. Then later, Bill (Greely, president) asked if I would be interested in being director of sales, and I interviewed and got the job. Mr. (Ted) Bassett (chairman) and Bill were look- ing for somebody young. They understood that to a degree the sales would be chang- ing. You had an old guard — people like Leslie Combs II and Warner Jones — but they wanted to reach out to younger con- signors, too. So they wanted a fresh set of eyes to look at the sales and see where they might be changed, modernized to a degree. Were there points of tension among consignors wanting you to look out for their interests perhaps more than the buyers? RB: First, I had 110 percent support from Ted Bassett and Bill Greely and Stan Jones (Keeneland's then-CFO). They never wavered in their support. We would dis- cuss ideas and they asked why we would change things, and Mr. Bassett might pound the table and ask, "Why would that be better?" The role of the sales compa- ny is to do your best for the consignors. They are the ones leading the product. But you also have to have some transparency so when people buy your product, they have a comfort level. It wasn't the 1950s or 1960s when you had the old boys who had their individual clients. It had been becoming more international long before I got here. Robert Sangster and Vincent O'Brien had already been making their presence felt, and then the Maktoums came in the 1980s.You had to make them feel comfortable. What changes did you make? RB: Some of the things we did might seem like no-brainers now. If you were a consignor up in barn 41, you had no way of knowing what was going on down in the sales arena. I told Mr. Bassett we needed televisions, and he asked why. To his credit he went up there and he came back and said, "You're right. Go get some televisions." I thought this would be this huge requisitions project and asked "what do we do?" He said, "Go fnd the best ones!" Another change was to get away from the pattern of the major consignors sell- ing everything on their certain day. I went to Bill and Mr. Bassett and said we need- ed to split up consignments, and they asked why at frst but went with it. The consignor who was the most helpful was Seth Hancock (Claiborne Farm). Seth is a wonderful person and a great traditional- ist, and he said we had always done it one way. I said, "We need to think about down the road. If a buyer comes in and wants to spend $50,000 a horse, he doesn't want to stay here fve or more days." Seth agreed to split his consignment, which let me show others that I was being impar- Beasley has been a familiar presence in the paddock during the race meets. ANNE M. EBERHARDT