Few people will be able to look back on their lives with as great a sense of accomplishment as John Andreini.  After founding and establishing Andreini and Company — now one of the top 50 independently owned insurance brokerage firms in the United States, where he still plays an active role as founder, CEO and chairman of the board — John Andreini built JL Ranch, an admirable breeding, racing and cattle operation.

During those ensuing years, he also served as Governor Schwarzenegger’s appointee to the California Horse Racing Board and in various roles in the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) and Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association (PCQHRA).

In addition, he established a successful wine-grape farming operation, and developed real estate as well. And, just last year, he added racetrack owner to his resume when he became part of the four-man partnership that bought Ruidoso Downs Racetrack and Casino and Ruidoso Horse Sales.

Friend and racehorse partner Vince Genco says, “He’s 90 years old now and he still goes like a young guy most of the time. I’m 68 and I don’t get as much done as I used to, but it seems the busier  he is, the better he likes it. He never makes excuses and never complains. He’s always there when he says he will be, and you always know where you stand with him. He’s not afraid to let people know his opinion — and I like people like that.”

“He’s an amazing individual,” adds former jockey and trainer Danny Cardoza, who now manages Andreini’s 2,600-acre JL Ranch in Paicines, California. “I’ve never known anybody like him before. He’s up on everything going on in the world and if you want to talk about something, I don’t care if it’s one of the Supreme Court justices, he knows all about it.”

Perhaps Andreini’s all-encompassing sense of curiosity and interest comes from a combination of nature and nurture. His father, Giovanni, was born in Florence, Italy, in 1888 and graduated from the University of Rome, then became a professor of philosophy before immigrating to the United States before World War I, marrying Andreini’s mother, Mildred, during the depression, and raising four sons and one daughter — the oldest being John.

Andreini attended a Catholic high school until his mother passed away when he was 16.  His father then enrolled him in San Mateo High School. “I’d never been in a school with girls before and I forgot how to study,” Andreini says.

With World War II raging, he and several friends tried to enlist, but the Marine Corps rejected him due to an injury. Instead, he spent two years in the Merchant Marines. “In those days, everyone was volunteering,” Andreini says. “The level of patriotism in this country was something like I’ve never seen since.

“I went to Bellingham, Washington, when I was 17 and signed on to the ship like I was going to the public library — there were no papers to sign, they just wanted people to man those ships. Off we went. We had 4,000 troops on our ship and we went to Iwo Jima.”

He fulfilled his contract about six months after the war was over. When he got home at age 19, he married — against his father’s wishes — then took night classes at Golden Gate College.

By the time he’d had two children and another on the way, he quit school to provide for his family. “I had two or three jobs, and I kind of scrambled my way through life, and here I am,” he says. “I’ve never forgiven myself for not going further in school, but it was just impossible.”

He started Andreini and Company in San Mateo, California, in 1951. The business has grown to include more than a dozen locations in California, Oklahoma, Texas and North Carolina, and employs more than 200 insurance professionals.

In 1968, fate stepped in when his best insurance customer asked him if he’d like to go on the Rancheros Visitadores, a 60-mile horseback ride from Santa Barbara, California, that about 1,000 people from around the world attend each year. “I didn’t want to tell him I didn’t know how to ride a horse,” Andreini says. “I told him I’d love to come.”

He proceeded to teach himself how to ride by renting a horse from Golden Gate State Park in San Francisco. “The horses there were so barn sour, they’d run back to the barn when you got them 500 yards from the place!” he says.

Finally, one of his ranch accounts offered him a horse to take on the ride. “I went down there and rode him on the ranch and he was dead broke,” Andreini says. “I didn’t think I’d get in any trouble. But he was ranch broke — he was never in any place where a bunch of drunks were beating on drums and all. We had a lot of fun, and that got me hooked in the horse business!”

It was that same year that Andreini joined the ranks of stakes-winning owners when he won the 1968 Long Beach Stakes. “Winning Streak was a pretty filly,” he says. “I was such a greenhorn in the business that I didn’t realize what winning a stakes meant, so it was just, ‘I won a race.’ But, it did make it seem like racing could be fun.”

Along the way, Andreini met Judd Morse. “We’ve had a lot of great times together,” he says. “We started a ranch called Future Farms and had a lot of great horses together.” He also met the cowboy artist Jimmy Stuckenberg, creator of the bronze for the Sam Thompson Memorial Foundation.

Andreini describes Truly Truckle TB as the trio’s first good stud horse. “In those days, we got $1,000 for a stud fee and that was a big deal because most of the horses’ fees were $300–$400. We bred over 120 mares to him the first year, and we did the same the next year and raised the price to $1,500.”

Andreini was also in the first syndicate of owners for First Down Dash. “I loved that horse,” he says. “He was the most regal animal I’ve ever seen in my life and I was proud to be an owner. You couldn’t find a better horse, a faster horse or a better sire in those days.”

He also met Blane Schvaneveldt. “We were partners for years and years,” he says. “We owned many great horses — a lot of good mares and a lot of great racehorses. He’s the guy who really helped me the most through those years.”

In 1988 — exactly 100 years after his father was born — Andreini bought JL Ranch, named for himself and his wife, Linda, and in 2004 he hired Danny Cardoza, who had previously worked at Vessels Stallion Farm, to run it. “I’ve loved our relationship,” he says. “He’s been a great mentor and he knows a lot about the business. He’s helped me a great deal and he’s a great watchdog.”

As Andreini progressed in the racing business, he owned the 1991 Tolltac mare Jumping Tac Flash, who earned $147,065 in two years, winning seven of 15 starts. “She was Champion 2-Year-Old Filly and I kept her for two years,” he says. Then Blane Schvaneveldt, who trained the filly and who’d suggested Andreini buy the filly, asked if he wanted to sell her. Andreini agreed, and Jumping Tac Flash brought $250,000 from the List family at the Pomona Sale.

Andreini also owned the 1986 filly Beat Your Pants Off (Six Fols-Splashing Bunny, Jet Creek), the dam of Jumping Tac Flash, who earned $22,440. “She produced more foals than any other Quarter mare in the country; her record still stands,” Andreini says. “Every time you’d go to get an embryo, you’d get 10. She was such a great producer, and every one of her foals brought $40,000–
$50,000 minimum. I was going to sell her, too, and then I thought, ‘I made a lot of money on Jumping Tac Flash so I’ll keep her’, and I’m glad I did!”

Another horse he loved was Militante (First Down Dash–Militia, Pie In The Sky), because he was such a big brute of a gelding. “He ran fifth in the All American for a man who owned a newspaper in Mexico and Blane said I ought to buy that horse. All he wanted to do was run and you couldn’t slow him down. It was a thrill to see him run those big 440-yard races and beat everybody’s butt!”

Check Him Out, a 1999 colt by Hennessy TB and out of First Down Dash daughter Check Her Twice, was another of Andreini’s favorites. The multiple-graded-stakes-winning stallion earned
$418,528, ranking 16th by earnings in 2001, and 23rd by earnings and 29th by wins in 2002. “He was by a very expensive stud that D. Wayne Lukas ran, whose stud fee was $500,000,” Andreini says. “I bought out Lucas’ share of the colt, partnering with Zory Kuzyk. That horse was very, very difficult to beat in those derbies. In retrospect, he’s one of the best broodmare sires the industry has ever seen.”

He also has a 5-year-old mare named Gotcha Bella (Mr Jess Perry–Designateddriver, Corona Cartel) who had the second fastest time in works for the 2015 All American. “She bled badly so we couldn’t run her there, but she came back and won some stakes races at Los Alamitos,” he says. “She’s a beautiful mare; one that I raised and kept.”

In 2017, Heritage Place CEO Jeff Tebow, who also writes farm/ranch and animal mortality insurance for Andreini and Company in the Oklahoma office, told Andreini that Stan Sigman, former president and CEO of AT&T, wanted to see him at his place in Hondo, Texas, about a potential deal.

Andreini agreed to meet with Sigman and several others, and they asked if he was interested in buying Ruidoso Downs with nine or 10 other people. “I said, ‘Don’t you think I’m a little bit old to be buying a business?’ But by the time an hour and a half or so was over, I decided I was going to do it.”

Later, Andreini was at a convention crossing the street to go to a restaurant with Narciso “Chicho” Flores, who owns the biggest drywall company in Texas. “Chicho is a Mexican immigrant who used to pick fruit,” Andreini says. “This guy is a wonder. I told him I thought it would be a good idea to have a Mexican in the partnership because there are so many Mexicans in the horse business. I said, ‘We’re going to buy a racetrack, are you interested?’ He said, ‘I’m in!’”

When the deal finally sifted out, only four partners remained able and interested: Sigman, Andreini, Flores and Johnny Trotter. The sale finalized in October 2017.

“We’re trying to clean up racing,” Andreini says. “The receipts are up, the handle is up. We have drug dogs that patrol the barns on a random basis, and the clenbuterol and some of the bad drugs are gone from Ruidoso. Now, the good guys can win a race once in a while. We’re very happy; there’s a different atmosphere now.

“We’ve got people like Lowell Neumayer, who has run the Ruidoso Sales company that we now own, and he has done a wonderful job and is still one of our very good friends. And, we hired Jeff True as the president and general manager, and he’s turned out to be one of the wonders of the universe. He’s an extremely capable administrator.

“We’ve put a new roof on the racetrack at a cost of $1 million, and fixed the grandstand area. We’re making everything more attractive and have put in a number of new machines at the casino. We’re looking to bring back racing!”

What it all boils down to, Andreini says, is that he wants to be an honest businessman and hold the respect of his peers. And, he wants to provide for his family. “I enjoy my family,” he says. “I’ve got a couple vacation homes and we try to go on vacations.” And, two daughters have inherited his love for the horse business.

“When I die, I just want them to say, ‘He wasn’t a bad guy.’ That’s simple and uncomplicated.”
– John Andreini

• Served a three-year term
  as Gov. Schwarzenegger’s appointee to California Horse Racing Board beginning in 2006
• American Quarter Horse Association director and member of the AQHA Racing Committee and Racing Council
• Won AQHA’s Gordon Crone Award, recognizing his achievements in the American Quarter Horse industry, in 2008
• Pacific Coast Quarter Horse Racing Association emeritus director
• Syndicate shares in: Corona Cartel, First Down Dash, Fishers Dash, Mr Jess Perry, One Famous Eagle, Stel Corona, Valiant Hero, Walk Thru Fire

Bred (solely or in partnership) winners of more than $3.5 million:

• Dashin Vike ($142,432), dam of multiple stakes winner Runaway Wagon
• Fetching Beauty (with Vince Genco, $135,000)
• Gotcha Bella ($56,921)
• Head Turner (with Blane Schvaneveldt, $294,032)
• Imjumpn (with Blane Schvaneveldt, $56,495), PCQHRA Broodmare of the Year in 2009
• Jumpn Beduino (with Blane Schvaneveldt, $267,825)
• Lindas Dasher (with Blane Schvaneveldt, $331,703)
• Volcom ($430,433), sire of 2014 All American Futurity winner JM Miracle and 2016 Champion Volcom Bay