Horse auction

The boss dragged me across the river to a horse auction yesterday. I won't lie and say it wasn't fun, although I really didn't want to go. (Just lazy I guess). We came within about 25 bucks of bringing home a horse. (Whew, close one there.)

Anyhow, what an assortment of horses we saw. The migration of the Amish to the area brought a huge offering of draft horses of all ages and descriptions and there were a few local light horses and ponies too.

It was exciting. While we were standing behind the auctioneers' stand watching a pair of Halflingers being paraded at a high trot, I looked over at a commotion a few feet away and found myself staring right at a horse's belly button. Argghhh!!! A tall, flaxy chestnut mare was sunfishing right there among all the auction goers and horses waiting to be sold. Only the fact that a couple of big Amish boys were on her halter kept her from throwing herself right over backwards. We decided to go over by the grandstand until they got her through the ring. She was a hot one and I don't envy whoever has her in their stable today.

Just after she sold an Amish fellow brought in a little yellow colt. I was pretty sure it was a Halflinger, but it didn't have the refinement about the head you see in the hotblooded ones around here. It looked more like a miniature Belgian with a puffy little curly tail and thick, furry blonde ears. I liked it. It was very correct and seemed very quiet (could have been drugged of course.)

We watched a few more sell hoping to see what that one brought and then left. We were over in Fonda getting laundry detergent when the boss said, "I want to buy that colt."

O....ka-a-a-y.....we are about as broke as we could possibly be, milk prices are what they were in 1970, fuel prices aren't, and we already have two horses nobody does anything with. Still, the man works like a dog...two dogs maybe, and today is his 58th brithday. (Happy birthday, Ralph,we love you). So, I said, go get him, no more than four hundred bucks.

We rushed back to the sale where I sat in the car with a good Andrew Greeley book while he went in to see what he could do. He bid up to $250 on the little guy, then decided that was enough. A dealer took him home for $275.

Can't say I was really sorry. We knew nothing about the colt except that he was cute and had no real use for him. Still he was cute...... really, really cute. He had excellent feet and legs and was put together just right.


Horse prices ranged from ten dollars for a skeletal old thing that someone is hoping to rehabilitate, to near four thousand each for a pair of locally grown Paint showhorses. They must have sold a hundred head, and were still selling long after we left. You could hear the aucioneer's chant from here when the wind was right.