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BONSALL — The northwestern San Diego County property that encompasses the Vessels Stallion Farm has been listed for sale.

Bill Thead, the LLC manager at Vessels, announced in April that the Vessels Ranch property has been listed for sale with Sotheby’s International Realty in association with Equestrian Real Estate. The property consists of 1,390 acres and includes the approximately 275 acres on which the Vessels Stallion Farm operation is sited.

“The Vessels Ranch property is extremely valuable due to its overall size and location within 10 miles of the Pacific Ocean in the county of San Diego,” Thead announced. “The upland portions of the property above the horse facilities have excellent residential development potential. It has been determined that it is in the best interests of the family to seek to realize the value of this property now rather than continuing to hold it for investment.”

He added that the imminent sale of the property “does not mean the end of Vessels Stallion Farm.”

The facility, he said, remains open for business with more than 260 horses boarded at the Farm.

“It would not be unusual for a property of this magnitude to take an extended period of time to sell,” said Thead. “Moreover, any sale transaction will have to allow several additional months for an orderly winding down of our use of the existing equine facilities and the relocation of our horses and those of our clients.”

He said it is “impossible” to discuss this property without thinking of Frank “Scoop” Vessels, the grandson of the founder of Los Alamitos Race Course, who died in 2010 in a twin-engine plane crash in southeastern Oregon. He was 58. The plane, an Aero Commander Model 500-B, broke up in the air and was destroyed after crashing about 80 miles south of Burns, Ore.

“He had known and often said that there would come a time when this land would become too valuable to remain undeveloped, and that when that time came Vessels Stallion Farm would move to a more economical location,” Thead said. “He viewed this as a natural progression, much like his family’s history with the Los Alamitos Race Course property. To that end, he had made multiple trips to Texas and Oklahoma scouting for potential future locations for Vessels Stallion Farm prior to his passing. We feel confident that Scoop would agree that now is the time.”

Vessels Stallion Farm LLC is owned by a trust for the benefit of Scoop Vessels’ sons, Kash and Colt. Thead said while plans exist to maintain the current level of industry participation over the next few years, over the long term “it will of course be up to Kash and Colt to determine the extent of their future in the horse business.”

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