re: auctions

["Susan Garlinghouse" <suendavid@worldnet.att.net>]

I've never either bought or sold a horse at auction, but I think there are
alot of well-meaning people that send their horses to a reputable sale
thinking they're doing the right thing by the horse.  Maybe it was Kat
Swigart that told me this a year or three ago, but the story goes that a
trainer was driving past one of the killer-buyer ranches in So Cal and saw a
nice horse in the holding pen, pulled and banded mane, tail still in a sock,
body clipped, the whole thing.  She stopped, took a good look, asked to try
him out and the horse coulda gone into the show ring that day.  She bought
him for $50 over what the buyer paid for him (killer prices), even got the
papers and called the previous owner to find out why in god's name that
horse was in a kill yard.

The previous owner had had NO CLUE her horse had been bought by the
killers---she was leaving for college, needed to sell the horse and put him
into a very well-known and reputable sale without a reserve because a "good
home" was more important than price.  But, the horse went through the ring
early in the day, happened to slip through the cracks when attendance was
low and the only person bidding seriously was the killer buyer.  It turns
out the horse was perfectly schooled, had won a whole mess of shows and was
just luck that the trainer saw him before he went on a truck to Texas.

Probably pretty naive of the selling owner, but a lot of very high quality
horses go through sales rings and on to the slaughter house, just because
there are more sellers than buyers.  I don't think every one that consigns a
horse to a sale knows that.

Just a comment.

Susan G