Younger Caldwell Continues Family's Tradition

As a scion of the iconic Caldwell family of auctioneers and Thoroughbred breeders, it was natural that Alden Caldwell would find her way into the industry.

As she did last year, the 24-year-old Caldwell has been shopping this week's Keeneland January Horses of All Ages Sale for just-turned yearlings that can be resold at Keeneland's September Yearling Sale. The millennial agent said her first pinhooking venture with Wendy Clay on two yearlings last year was successful, so she decided to give it another try this year.

"I am looking for a racier yearling—a big, stout-looking baby that looks like a 2-year-old when it's a yearling and looks like it's ready for a saddle on its back—and, obviously, as perfect legs you can get so they perform well as a yearling," Caldwell said of her criteria. "It's like finding the diamonds in the rough. I like a horse that has presence when they come out—that aura of a racehorse."

Raised on her family's ranch in Oregon, Caldwell graduated from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo with a degree in agriculture science and a minor in meat science with an emphasis on sales. Following a stint selling grass-fed beef, she returned home to manage the family's 100-acre ranch, where beef cattle and Quarter Horses for pleasure riding are raised.

Caldwell knows the sales scene well. Her father, Cris Caldwell, and uncle Scott Caldwell are part of the Keeneland auctioneering team, and her late grandfather Thomas Caldwell was Keeneland's director of auctioneers. The Caldwell family was involved in Thoroughbred breeding but got out of the business during the economic downturn in 2007.

"I wanted to continue the family tradition," Caldwell said of her transition into the bloodstock marketplace. "I was ready for the challenge. I've grown up doing this my whole life, and I love conformation and bloodlines. You can make as much off a horse as you can an entire crop of cattle."

Since age 14, Caldwell has been a regular at sales in Kentucky and on the West Coast, and she'll be working the barns at the California Thoroughbred Breeders' Sale in Pomona next week. She believes that hands-on experience has equipped her for buying and selling horses.

"I love working in the barns," Caldwell said. "It's where the rubber meets the road. I think it's really how you learn to look at horses, what people are doing to get horses to look their best. It gives you that inside track to the minds of the horses. I'd like to think my eyes are pretty trained from working sales for a long time, but there are always things to work on and get better at, and sometimes it's luck."

Caldwell said she and others of her generation getting involved with horse sales and breeding shows it can be as gratifying as racing.

"A lot of people aren't as fortunate as I am to be in the position as young as I am, and I think it is so important for a younger generation wanting to get into this side of it—the breeding and bloodstock side—rather than working at the track."