![]() ![]() Over the shouts of buyers gathered at Heritage Place, the auctioneer rattled off bids that rose in increments of $25,000, climbing swiftly from $200,000 to $650,000. Treviño told Graham he wanted a valuable broodmare named Dashin Follies at any price. In January 2010, Graham agreed to act as a buyer for Treviño at Heritage Place’s winter auction in Oklahoma. To win Tempting Dash, Graham dropped $12,000 on a deer hunt in South Texas for Treviño, the stallion’s trainer Eusevio “Chevo” Huitron, and each man’s son. In the horse-breeding industry, winning colts like Tempting Dash were like top-ranked college athletes, and Graham was like a recruiter trying to acquire one of the most distinguished lineages in quarter horse racing for his family’s stud farm. But Tyler Graham worked hard to strike up a friendship with Treviño. Where the money came from and how a bricklayer had come to own a horse like Tempting Dash was a mystery. ![]() Recently, he’d come into some money-a lot of money. The son of Mexican immigrants, he’d grown up in a large family that shuttled between Nuevo Laredo and North Texas. Known as humble and hardworking, Treviño told Graham he made his living as a bricklayer in the Dallas suburbs. Tempting Dash’s owner, Jose Treviño, in his white cowboy hat and scuffed cowboy boots, had his own reputation. In the depths of recession, a winner like Tempting Dash was just what Tyler Graham needed to make his reputation as heir to the family legacy. But Tyler knew the prize money was nothing compared to what Tempting Dash, with his string of triumphs and impeccable bloodline, would bring in breeding fees after he retired. The horse had arrived from Mexico earlier that year, clocking record-setting speeds in Laredo before setting a track record in the Texas Classic Futurity at Lone Star Park near Dallas, winning more than $490,000 in one of the richest competitions in the sport. In the winter of 2009, the most coveted stallion in the world of American quarter horse racing was a sleek, copper-colored colt named Tempting Dash. It was time for the 25-year-old to prove his worth. When Doc Graham was gone, the whole enterprise would be Tyler’s. He’d appointed the recent Texas A&M University graduate as manager of his million-dollar horse breeding facility, and assigned him other duties overseeing the family’s feed yard and cattle ranch, along with his partial stake in Heritage Place, one of the nation’s largest auction houses for American quarter horses. In 2009, the 75-year-old was planning to hand over his legacy and his horse-racing empire to his grandson, Tyler. His success with Three Ohs convinced other owners to bring their most valuable race horses to Doc Graham’s stud farm, the Southwest Stallion Station. It was the legendary stallion Three Ohs that had changed Doc Graham’s career in 1970, turning his breeding facility in Elgin, which he’d started with almost nothing, into one of the nation’s elite stud farms. Charles Graham, a respected rancher and veterinarian, had built the family’s fortune over four decades of breeding and racing champion quarter horses. Horse racing was in Tyler Graham’s blood. ![]()
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