Randall Lowe is right at home pushing his chips to the middle of the table.
He's been handicapping the races since he was seven years old, and in that time, he's hit over 200 Pick 6 tickets for proceeds well into seven figures. Then, he walked away from the insurance company he founded four decades ago in Marina Del Ray, Calif., to put it all on a horse.
“I had told my brothers I'm gonna move to Vegas and they said, 'Why?' and I said, 'I've got this horse that's gonna make me a million dollars,'” Lowe said. “They said, 'You're crazy. You're gonna give up everything that you have and you're gonna move to Las Vegas?'”
The horse was a chestnut filly named Lady Shipman, and her entire career has been jackpot after jackpot for her breeder. After earning $902,387 on the racetrack, including 11 stakes wins and a narrow second in the Grade 1 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint in 2015. Her first foal was the superstar turf sprinter Golden Pal, a horse he campaigned as a homebred to a G2 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Turf Sprint victory before selling him privately to the Coolmore partnership, who won the G1 Breeders' Cup Turf Sprint with him.
A successful gambler knows when it's time to take their money off the table, and Lowe will aim to do just that on Tuesday when he offers Lady Shipman at the Fasig-Tipton November Sale.
The 11-year-old daughter of Midshipman will be offered as Hip 196, part of the first book of mares for the undefeated Horse of the Year Flightline. She'll be consigned by Lane's End, as agent.
Lowe has been inundated with offers on the mare since she was on the racetrack, and those overtures got even louder once Golden Pal became a superstar.
If Lady Shipman had come along earlier in Lowe's life, he might have continued to shrug them off. As it stands, Lowe knows the hand he's got, and he's playing it accordingly.
“If I was 10 years younger I would have bought a farm,” he lamented. “But, you know, I'm 66 going towards 67. I've been in this business for 38 years and, you know, sometimes you hate to see them go but sometimes you've got to let them go to people that really can take care of the horses more.”
Lady Shipman has long been the fulcrum of Lowe's nom de course Ranlo Investments' racing and breeding program. He purchased her dam, the Mutakddim mare Sumthingtotalkabt as a yearling for $28,000, and he campaigned her to five wins with trainer Wallace Dollase. Lady Shipman was her second foal, and Lowe decided to keep the filly after finishing under her reserve as a juvenile with a final bid of $35,000.
After Lady Shipman's success on the track, Lowe sold Sumthingtotalkabt privately to SF Bloodstock. He had his new cornerstone broodmare.
Lowe retired Lady Shipman at the end of her 4-year-old campaign to avoid the risk of losing her to injury on the track, and sent her to Uncle Mo for her first mating. Where Lady Shipman helped blaze the trail to improve turf sprinting's standing in the North American racing hierarchy, Golden Pal blasted down that path, winning eight of 13 and earning over $1.3 million with trainer Wesley Ward.
Like he was with Lady Shipman, Lowe was courted hard by Kentucky's horsemen after Golden Pal's first Breeders' Cup win. With a potential stallion in his stable, the stakes were higher, and he took that into account when he made his decision, ultimately landing with Coolmore after being impressed by its U.S. stallion operation, Ashford Stud.
Golden Pal was the busiest stallion in North America during his debut breeding season in 2023, covering 293 mares.
“I had fielded seven different offers from seven different farms and I wanted him to go to a good home, and I wanted him to be able to…I know this is kind of a weird statement to make, but, you know, when you have a little kid and you watch him grow up, you always want the best for them? I picked Coolmore because I figured they could enhance his stud career,” he said. “And lo and behold, he's like the most popular horse in Kentucky, if not all of North America.”
Lowe would like to think Golden Pal appreciated the thought he put into his decision.
“I went out to the farm to see him during my last trip here and – this is kind of sentimental on my part – he did something to me that he had never done before,” Lowe said. “I usually take my hand and I rub his muzzle and he tries to nip you a little bit and stuff. He was standing there and I thought I was talking to him and I said, 'These people will take good care of you. You're with a good organization. You always have a good home.' He literally was standing right there and he leaned forward and he actually kissed me on the lips. I could feel his whiskers.
“I was totally stunned, because the groom thought that he had bit me, but he didn't bite me, he actually lunged forward just to kiss me,” Lowe continued. “So do they understand what we're saying? I don't know. But, you know, the sentimental thing to me is, these things wouldn't be happening unless somehow it's true.”
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If you appreciate our work, you can support us by subscribing to our Patreon stream. Learn more.Breeding arguably two of the best turf sprinters of the 21st century is not something one tends to fall backward into, and Lowe was quick to credit the mentorship of multiple Eclipse Award-winning breeder John C. Mabee, the late owner of prominent California operation Golden Eagle Farm and at one time co-owner of the NFL's San Diego Chargers.
Under Mabee's tutelage, Lowe was allowed to select potential matings for the Golden Eagle mares, and Mabee would offer his feedback, fine-tuning Lowe's eye for what works between a stallion and a mare. They watched races together at Del Mar, where Mabee was a member of the board of directors, and he helped Lowe apply those lessons from the farm to the racetrack, and, most importantly, he taught him how to work with the people he'd meet along the way. That last lesson would be invaluable as he fielded offers for his star runners.
“That's why when you see me, when I won the first Breeders Cup, I hoisted the trophy up in the air as a thank you to John,” Lowe said. “And then at Del Mar, I also hoisted the trophy in the air for him.”
Applying those lessons on matings and pedigrees to Lady Shipman, Lowe also has a 2-year-old Omaha Beach colt named Lieutenant General, a yearling Uncle Mo filly named Luvwhatyoudo, and a weanling Essential Quality filly named Essential Lady. He keeps his young horses at Stockplace Farm in Lexington, Ky., and he said that trio will stay with him to race.
“This is to be the last time somebody can try to corner me in a bathroom or at the stakes room table and pick my brain for three hours trying to figure out how I know what I did,” Lowe said with a chuckle.
Lowe arrived in Lexington, Ky., from Las Vegas late Sunday night to watch Lady Shipman show and sell. He fed the mare a handful of mints, and she thanked him by resting her head on his shoulder. Then, Allaire Ryan of Lane's End showed Lowe and his family around the Fasig-Tipton sales grounds to give them a primer on what to expect on Tuesday night. Lowe was jet-lagged, but still ever-affable.
As a younger man, he was on the Redondo Beach police force, trying to scrape together enough money to both play a cheap Pick 6 and eat dinner. Days like Tuesday are what he was trying to manifest back then, and whether he sells the mare for a big price or takes her home under-reserve with an extremely commercial foal in-utero, he knows he's playing with house money.
“My motto has been, and will always be, if you try hard enough and you really want it – and I mean, you really want it – no matter how many times someone could knock you down or put you down or tell you you're stupid, or tell you that you don't know what you're doing; as long as you keep believing you can do it, your dreams will become fulfilled,” he said. “It will happen.”
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