On June 10th, I went to my very first horse auction. I think the nature of the arena itself is well-written in this 1998 article, End of the Trail, I'll do a short summation of MY experience.
I knew before that the Simon horse auction is one of "those" auctions. I went with my good friend Sarah, who had attended a small-time auction before. My auction knowledge was winning an Animaniacs piece during a cruise on my honeymoon. I knew that the Simons's are kill buyers, purchasing cheap, out-of-use or useless/unmarketable horses, and transporting them to slaughter for profit. My opinions on slaughter can come later (I'm learning quite a diatribe), but in short: while I'm not against the idea of horsemeat as a possible food source for interested parties, it's just done all wrong. Transport, methods, responsibility of owners, breeders, all of it.
Anyways, I'm the sciencey-type, so I wanted to see one for myself. And, to bid on a saddle if I finally found one wide enough for my old-skool QH. I had a bunch of cash, and thankfully left the trailer at home.
These are the folks over at the arena. The girls got us our numbers, giggling when we didn't know where to go. We looked over the tack, then wandered into the stall area.
Nothing terribly noteable here. Apparently nobody else was in a rush to get there an hour early like we were. No reason to get the horses settled in, right? Soon there were plenty and we went a-looking.
Some hid their heads low in the corner, some were thrilled to see us. One had a pretty cut up foot. Most were dirty, but some were clipped up. Many knocked over their water, almost none had any food. No bedding, just mats.
We went and bid on tack, then the ride-throughs started.
In the door on the left, and then ridden back and forth. First came the minis. Everyone awwed at the baby one. Cute. Buyer #20 bought a strangely large amount of them. They were cheap, 100 bucks max.Then the broke horses. Lips thinned whenever the announcer said "no papers." The messed up legged one came through (ridden by asshat, see below) and sold to #11, that would be the kill buyer on the right of the group photo above. Pretty much all the ones under 500 went to either 11, 1, 3, or 5. You know they have an "in" when they stand to the left of the podium on the shavings.
For whatever reason there were a few they would pay up to 1000 for. Must have been planning on teaching a few new moves, shining up, and reselling.
A 25 year old TB-looking mare, ridden English, ex-lesson horse and ex-broodmare went to #11. A broke mare, but unridden because with a 3 week old colt also went to 11. A few people said "no sale." A couple settled for just less than they wanted. The man with the injured horse said into the mic "I'm not bringing any of mine home, they all have to go." He brought a few other through. He looked so depressing on the horse. There was also an Amish dude who probably spent a decent amount of time training his horses but they were all grade and I think all of them went to the KBs, about 6 of them. Most over 15 were done for.
Some sold well, that is, above 1000. Those were doing rollbacks and cantering from side to side. I'd imagine a psyched up horse would be kind of easy to get to do harder maneuvers when there's nowhere else to go and they were all worked up before entering. One girl loved to hop behind the saddle, stand on it, slide off the butt, then lift legs, unsaddle and ride bareback in a slam-bam-this horse is quiet kinda way. Hers usually sold. These were mainly old and poor people buying horses that they could handle easily. F talent.
A little girl rode a horse behaving perfectly back and forth and even though it was a perfect angel sold to a KB.
I ran into my old BO's collector-neighbor. She bought three and was selling three. "For a camp." I asked her if the prices didn't go high enough if she'd let them go to slaughter. She informed me there is no horse slaughter. I informed her otherwise, and pointed out the KBs. I didn't see her ride through, but she liked my advice of at least smiling like it's a fun horse to ride. So many people looked so pissed off at their horses.
I did fall for a little grey mare, but had to leave to get to job #2 on time and didn't get to see her go through. No saddle on when her neighbors had them, she was short and not terribly athletic looking. I called in the morning. They wouldn't say how much she sold for, or who, but did say she sold.
After we left there were more of the ride and walk-thrus, and then the "loose horse sales". I think that's better summed up in the article I linked, because I wasn't there. I did see one of the KBs hopping on the backs of horses in small pens of loose ones to see if any were broke and likely to fetch money.
I imagined my horse being sent to such a place. I could see him flipping out in his stall, screaming. I could just see him resorting to rearing or bucking in the narrow little show area, white eyed and crazed. Maybe he'd be doped up. No papers. I know who would buy him. He's 13, paperless, well-muscled, and swaybacked. Needless to say, even recouping my dollar on him 4000-fold would not tempt me.
1 comment:
I appreciate your comments on Simons, however I feel that you lose a bit of credibility in using copywrited photos. In effect you are in violation of copywrite laws in order to publish your opinion on Simons.
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