Saturday, April 28, 2007

Pecatonica Horse Auction!







Today I went to the Pecatonica Sale Barn for a horse auction. This is located in Pecatonica, Illinois. These are a couple of pictures I took amongst many more. The rear-ends with the number tags are yearlings. The others are two year olds. The highest price payed for the two years olds was $250.00 . They all had papers and were primarily bred for color as you can see. A lot of dun factor on those two year olds. A few Impressive bred AQHA. Most people looking at registered Quarter Horses stay away from Impressive. Most the horses here were in relatively good shape. The horses that were broke and ridable priced all over the place. As low as $750.00 each for a couple of Paints on up to a no-sale at $3,500.00 . A black stud sold for $2,500.00, bought by the owner of the sale barn. And a three month old "surprise" out of a registered mare (not sure who the daddy is) sold for $95.00 and she was cute. Looked like a quarter/pony. Tack was sold first, starting at 10:00 am..........Bridles $20.00 to $50.00 and nice western saddles up to $350.00. Leads and halters $10.00 to $20.00 or less. Horses started selling at 1:00 pm. I've been to this Pecatonica Sale Barn a few times over the past couple of years. That's where I bought Junior. Occasionally there is a disbursement sale and a large portion of the horses here today were just that. Jess does business with the owner of the sale barn and also is involved in the "Cutting Horse" industry with him. They also had a small show at the barn, demonstrating young horses that were bought last year and how well they have been trained over the past year following a pattern in the arena and demonstrating certain moves...stops, side passes, etc. Those horses were then brought to the sale arena. The winner was announced and they were auctioned. A good idea I thought. Again as I mentioned in a previous post, it is easy to get carried away at an auction. I came very close to buying, but best friend Jess looks out for me and pulled me away from the auction for lunch at a crucial point. Gerald looks out for me too. Gerald is Jess's boyfriend. To show just how easy it is, I will tell you what I was looking at. The most pitiful horse there. She was an eleven year old mostly brood mare, sorrel with four white socks and a white face, Very thin, wormy and needed to shed out her winter hair. Probably the only sick horse there. She was a double bred Impressive Quarter Horse with Conclusive on one side of her papers and Impressive on the other side. Supposedly good broke to ride and bred, however she was in heat and more than likely lost her baby as she she wasn't healthy. I just felt bad for her and she kept looking at me. In the end she did get sold and bought for more than I would have payed for her. Besides of which another horse on this property is not practical as my husband and I are attempting to pay for youngest's college and oldest's wedding this year.Steve would have been pissed. I purposely did not bring my trailer. Thank-you to Jess and Gerald for holding me back. And to my wonderful understanding husband who puts up with me for saying, "NOOOOOOOO". Gerald said he would rather have a bad case of strep throat than buy that horse.

1 comment:

Callie said...

Just a note....I'm not saying that Impressive bred horses are bad, just HYPP(hyperkalemic periodic paralysis) is a genetic defect which has only been traced back to Impressive. Impressive was a Champion Quarter Horse in Halter. This genetic defect has caused death and all horses tracing back to Impressive are tested for HYPP gene. I beleive this is an AQHA rule with perhaps some recent changes. It can be read about at AQHA. Anyways, people who look at Quarter Horse paper work for ahtletes in showing are looking for something different than halter but lineage to Quarter Horse people is very important.