Ex-cartel horses could fetch big bucks

Five quarter horses that were once the Zetas drug cartel's most prized animals will go up for auction Friday in Oklahoma City as the federal government sells off the last of the livestock it seized from the gang last year.

Among the two mares, two stallions and a 2-year-old filly, which federal agents seized along with nearly 500 other horses during raids of ranches and breeding and training facilities across the Southwest, is a pair of well-known race winners and a horse whose sale in 2010 set records.

The animals are probably most well-known, though, for their former owner, José Treviño Morales, a brother of Zetas leader Miguel Treviño Morales and a U.S. citizen who is serving a 20-year prison sentence. Prosecutors say he rigged U.S. horse races as part of a sophisticated money laundering scheme.

Butch Wise, who manages the Lazy E Ranch in Oklahoma, said these horses are known for their victories, their pedigrees and their offspring and will sell at high prices despite the cloud surrounding their previous owner.

One of the Zetas horses already sold for $1 million a year ago, when San Antonio Spurs co-owner Julianna Hawn Holt bought it at a federal government auction.

“They're certainly not your run-of-the-mill offerings in this or any sale. They would be the highlight of any sale individually, but collectively they really bring a lot of attention and a lot of buyers,” Wise said. “There certainly could, absolutely could, be a seven-figure horse there.”

In a sentencing and seizure hearing in September, Internal Revenue Service Special Agent Steve Pennington said the federal government had already made $9 million selling off 480 horses it seized from Treviño's racing and breeding operation. After paying for the animals' care, Pennington estimated, the government pocketed between $6.5 million and $7 million.

The feds touted the case as a major victory against Miguel Treviño, identified in court documents as a man who personally killed thousands of people and ran what was at the time the largest drug-trafficking organization in Mexico. It was unusual, observers said, because the government is often reluctant to take on the responsibility of caring for hundreds of animals.

“We do an analysis of all assets that we seize to make sure that it's worthwhile,” said Mike Lemoine, an IRS special agent and spokesman in San Antonio. “It's important in this case to deprive the Zetas of their ill-gotten gains.”

José Treviño is one of 10 people convicted of using the U.S. quarter-horse industry to launder tens of millions of dollars for the Zetas. In his trial this spring, prosecutors showed how in Treviño left Dallas, where he'd worked as a bricklayer, after a string of racing victories and moved to Oklahoma to launch a massive horse breeding operation.

Behind what prosecutors said appeared to be a perfectly legal, if not unusually fast-growing, quarter horse ranch was a complicated money laundering conspiracy using drug money to buy horses through straw purchasers, pay for the animals' upkeep and bribe racetrack officials in Texas and New Mexico.

The first horse the gang raced in the U.S. was Tempting Dash, one of the five up for sale Friday. Originally known in Mexico as Huesos, Spanish for bones, Tempting Dash launched José Treviño's racing career in 2009, winning a $400,000 purse at the Dash for Cash Futurity in Grand Prairie and setting a speed record.

At trial, prosecutors played jurors wiretaps of Zetas members discussing fixing the race. They also showed a picture taken after the race of José Treviño's children using hand signs to flash the number 40, the radio call sign used by Miguel Treviño, who's now in jail in Mexico, and 42, the call sign used by his brother and right hand, Omar.

Witnesses at trial described how, after Tempting Dash contracted a blood disease, José Treviño spent significant time and money to find a way to safely breed the stallion. Today, the Southwest Stallion Station in Elgin has a contract with the federal government to sell the horse's semen for $5,000 a breeding.

Also on sale Friday will be Mr. Piloto, who overcame long shot 22-1 odds to win the 2010 All American Futurity at Ruidoso Downs, N.M., bringing in a $1 million purse, the richest in quarter horse racing.

Again, that victory was marred by allegations that Miguel Treviño paid track officials $110,000 to fix the race in favor of Mr. Piloto, who barely made the race after posting the slowest qualifying time.

Officials at the Ruidoso Downs Race Track have denied the race was fixed, and Wise said he doesn't think the allegations will affect the sale prices of Mr. Piloto and Tempting Dash.

“Those horses, they won those races,” he said. “Tempting Dash was so dominating.”

Also for sale are Dashin Follies, who set a record price for a brood mare when the Zetas bought her for $875,000 in 2010; Separate Fire, another of the Zetas' brood mares; and Do Not Tempt Me, a 2-year-old filly who is just reaching racing age.

The government is also auctioning off four surrogate mares that have been implanted with embryos from Dashin Follies and Separate Fire. The two mares were bred with Corona Cartel and Mr. Jess Perry, the top two living sires. Wise said the surrogates could sell for six figures.

Wise, who cared for some of José Treviño's horses and testified at his trial, said the Zetas money launderers knew a lot about bloodlines and purchased some of the best horses available.

“These guys they bought at the very top, they bought the best bloodlines,” he said. “They weren't buying at Walmarts, they were buying at Tiffany's.”