Arthur A. Seeligson Jr.

Last updated
Arthur A. Seeligson Jr.
Born
Arthur Addison Seeligson Jr.

(1920-10-29)October 29, 1920
DiedApril 17, 2001(2001-04-17) (aged 80)
San Antonio, Texas
Education Phillips Exeter Academy
Yale University
OccupationOilman, rancher
Racehorse owner/breeder
Political party Republican
Board member ofNational Bank of Commerce, St. Mary's Hall School, Cambridge Royalty Company, University of Texas Marine Science Institute, Smithsonian Institution National Board of Associates, Phillips Exeter Academy
SpouseLinda Nixon
Children Ramona, Juliana, Arthur III
Parent(s)Arthur A. Seeligson
Ramona Frates

Arthur Addison Seeligson Jr. (October 29, 1920 - April 17, 2001) was an American oilman, rancher, and a Thoroughbred racehorse owner/breeder.

Contents

Family

Seeligson was born in San Antonio, Texas, the son of Ramona (née Frates) and Arthur Addison Seeligson Sr. His paternal great-grandfather, Henry Seeligson, was a Jewish Confederate soldier whose father served as mayor of Galveston, Texas. [1] Through his great-grandfather, Seeligson was a relative of composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk. Arthur Seeligson's brother, Frates Slick Seeligson (1923-2006), was a rancher and a member of the Texas House of Representatives from 1953 to 1960. His first cousin, once removed, Lamar Smith [1] has been a Republican Congressman from Texas since 1987.

Early life

Arthur Seeligson was raised a Protestant. His family moved to Oklahoma when he was still a boy. After studying at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire and then graduating from Yale University in 1942, Arthur Seeligson Jr. followed in his fathers footsteps as a successful investor in the oil and gas industry in Kansas.

Seeligson returned to live in San Antonio and it was his home at the time of his death in 2001.

Thoroughbred horse racing

Arthur Seeligson was involved in Thoroughbred horse racing for more than forty years. He had stakes race winners both in the United States and in Europe. He most notably bred and raced Avatar, winner of the 1975 Santa Anita Derby and the American Classic, the Belmont Stakes.

For a time, Arthur Seeligson was a co-owner of the now defunct Hialeah Park Race Track in Hialeah, Florida. He was a member of the board of directors of the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame in Saratoga Springs, New York. Seeligson's daughter, Ramona Seeligson Bass, was a driving force behind the creation of Texas Wild! at the Fort Worth Zoo. [2] The Zoo's Arthur A. Seeligson Conservation Fund was established by his family and friends to benefit Texas wildlife.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Citation (horse)</span> American-bred Thoroughbred racehorse

Citation was a champion American Thoroughbred racehorse who is the eighth winner of the American Triple Crown. He won 16 consecutive stakes races and was the first horse in history to win US$1 million.

The Fort Worth Zoo is a zoo in Fort Worth, Texas, United States, that was founded in 1909 with one lion, two bear cubs, an alligator, a coyote, a peacock and a few rabbits. The zoo now is home to 7,000 native and exotic animals and has been named as a top zoo in the nation by Family Life magazine, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today, as well as one of the top zoos in the South by Southern Living Reader's Choice Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Cruguet</span>

Jean Cruguet is a retired French-American thoroughbred horse racing jockey who won the United States Triple Crown of Thoroughbred Racing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hialeah Park Race Track</span> United States historic place

The Hialeah Park Race Track is a historic racetrack in Hialeah, Florida. Its site covers 40 square blocks of central-east side Hialeah from Palm Avenue east to East 4th Avenue, and from East 22nd Street on the south to East 32nd Street on the north. On March 5, 1979, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. Another listing for it was added in 1988. The Hialeah Park Race Track is served by the Miami Metrorail at the Hialeah Station at Palm Avenue and East 21st Street.

Lee Marshall Bass is an American businessman and philanthropist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph E. Widener</span>

Joseph Early Widener was a wealthy American art collector who was a founding benefactor of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. A major figure in thoroughbred horse racing, he was head of New York's Belmont Park and builder of Miami's Hialeah Park racetrack in Florida.

George Dunton Widener Jr. was an American businessman and thoroughbred racehorse owner; one of only five people ever designated "Exemplars of Racing" by the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Erie Race Track</span> Horse racetrack

Fort Erie Race Track is a horse racing facility in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada, that opened on June 16, 1897. The racetrack is often referred to as "the border oval" because of the track's proximity to the U.S. border. Its most important race is the Prince of Wales Stakes, the second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown.

Colonel Edward Riley Bradley was an American steel mill laborer, gold miner, businessman and philanthropist. As well as a race track proprietor, he was the preeminent owner and breeder of Thoroughbred racehorses in the Southern United States during the first three decades of the 20th century. Testifying before a United States Senate committee in April 1934, Bradley identified himself as a "speculator, raiser of race horses and gambler". He appeared on the cover of Time magazine on May 7, 1934. In the year 2000, the Florida Department of State honored him as one of their Great Floridians.

Arthur Boyd Hancock III is an American owner of Thoroughbred racehorses, the owner of Stone Farm, a 2,000 acre (8 km2) horse breeding operation in Paris, Kentucky, and a composer of Bluegrass music.

Avatar was an American Thoroughbred racehorse best known for winning the 1975 Belmont Stakes. He was bred and raced by San Antonio, Texas businessman Arthur A. Seeligson Jr. and trained by Tommy Doyle.

Aloma's Ruler (1979–2003) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the second leg of the 1982 U.S. Triple Crown series, the Preakness Stakes.

He's A Smoothie was a Canadian Thoroughbred Champion and Hall of Fame racehorse who set track records on both dirt and turf. Bred and raced by William R. Beasley, his sire was the U.S. Racing Hall of Fame inductee Round Table. His dam was Ratine, a daughter of Bahram, the Aga Khan's 1935 British Triple Crown champion. A successful sire of two British Classic winners, Bahram was purchased in 1940 by an American syndicate led by Alfred G. Vanderbilt II, who brought him to stand at stud in Maryland.

John G. Canty was an American Thoroughbred horse racing trainer.

William B. Finnegan was an American Thoroughbred horse racing trainer.

Ivan Harris Parke was an American Hall of Fame Thoroughbred horse racing jockey and trainer who won more races than any other jockey in the United States in 1923, as an apprentice, and again in 1924 when he also was the United States Champion Jockey by earnings. Parke trained the 1945 Kentucky Derby winner, Hoop Jr. and Jewel's Reward to 1957 American Champion Two-Year-Old Colt honors.

Horse racing in the United States dates back to 1665, which saw the establishment of the Newmarket course in Salisbury, New York, a section of what is now known as the Hempstead Plains of Long Island, New York. This first racing meet in North America was supervised by New York's colonial governor, Richard Nicolls. The area is now occupied by the present Nassau County, New York, region of Greater Westbury and East Garden City.

William Thomas Waggoner was an American rancher, oilman, banker, horsebreeder and philanthropist from Texas. He was the owner of the Waggoner Ranch, where he found oil in 1903. He was the founding President of the Waggoner National Bank of Vernon. He established the Arlington Downs and paid for the construction of three buildings on the campus of Texas Woman's University.

Clarence Scharbauer Jr. was an American rancher, oilman, banker, horse breeder and philanthropist. He was inducted into the American Quarter Horse Hall of Fame and the Horse Racing Hall of Fame.

Rushaway was an American Thoroughbred racehorse whose enduring legacy was his two Derby wins on consecutive days in two different states. Owned and trained by Alfred Tarn, in both races, Rushaway was ridden by Tarn's son-in-law, the future National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame inductee Johnny Longden. On Friday afternoon, May 22, 1936, Rushaway won the Illinois Derby at Aurora Downs in Aurora, Illinois. That night, Tarn shipped the three-year-old gelding three hundred miles south via express train to the Latonia Race Track in Latonia, Kentucky where on Saturday afternoon he won the Latonia Derby. Rushaway's feat of endurance is still talked about more than eighty years later.

References

  1. 1 2 "Lamar smith". Archived from the original on 2012-01-26. Retrieved 2011-11-19.
  2. "Dateline Texas by Karen Olsson - The Texas Observer". Archived from the original on 2006-10-02.