The February horse sale at BLS is the best! It is what they call the Sons and Daughters sale, where people from all over the country come to sell their good, good horses! It is the biggest sale they have all year! So big in fact that it lasts a whole extra day long.
BLS has a horse sale every 4th Saturday of the month. They feature different types of horses each month. Roping horses, Pack horses, Barrel horses, Ponies. You name it they feature it sometime during the year.
On Saturday they have what is called the Catalogue sale, featuring the “ride through” horses. People send in pictures and descriptions of their horse and the sale barn prints up a catalogue. You can get online and start “shopping” for the horses before the sale. (My little cowgirl and I routinely circle all of out top picks. We have a knack for picking the highest selling horses of the sale!)
The catalogue horses sell with a soundness guarantee. Most weekends the catalogue sale starts on Saturday and finished Sunday afternoon. But for the huge February sale the catalogue sale goes all day Friday, all day Saturday (sometimes till LATE in the evening and even past midnight) and finishes off on Sunday afternoon after the loose horse sale.
Loose horses sell on Sunday morning. Loose horses are horses that people want to sell, but they haven’t taken the time or extra expense of cataloguing them. They drop the horses off, they are numbered and they run them in one at a time and sell to the highest bidder. There is no story, write up or history of the horse. And there is no soundness guarantee.
The loose horses are kept toward the back of the sale yard in large pens with several horses in one pen together. They have numbered tags on their hips and shoulders. We always go back and look them over. (And generally come home with one or two, or four, or six.)
Other people look the horses over too. It is common to see people with halters catching the loose horses and riding them bareback in the pens and up and down the alley. I don’t know if they are braver than me, or what. I prefer to gamble and take mine home before I ride them.
The ride through or catalogue horses are kept closer to the sale barn in smaller pens with fewer horses to each pen.
Horses come from all over the U.S. to sell here at the BLS horse sale. Many from Texas, Kansas, North and South Dakota, Nebraska, and Michigan. They come in every size and shape and color and build.
Some are blanketed.
Some are tough enough to weather the weather.
Some are big like this gorgeous grullo.
Some are small like this cute little pony.
And then are are some like this.
And others like this. (No just kidding. They have a livestock sale on Mondays. So there are always a few cows, or bulls in this case, that are there waiting to sell on Monday.)
We usually head up on Saturday to watch a little of the catalogue sale, then stay the night at the Best western. the pool there is fabulous! We order Red Lobster to go. Eat in the room, get tons of swimming done and watch as much cable as we can since we don’t have it at home.
On Sunday morning the motel serves up a hot breakfast including biscuits and gravy, waffles, and omelets. Dick heads to the sale and the kids to the pool for one last dip. I watch the kids swim and drink coffee. This was in front of me Sunday.
This was the view out the window behind me. Brr.
The catalogue horses come in and they ride them around this little tiny pen trying to show everything their horse can do. Thus getting higher bids and a better price.
It is packed during the February sale. Standing room only and overflowing to outside during peak times. This picture was taken at the end of the catalogue sale on Sunday afternoon and quite a few people had headed home by this time.
Sometimes people will ride double, or bareback, or swing a rope or stand on their horse, or any of a zillion tricks to try to get more bids on their horses.
And that is just the beginning. When you come back next time I will tell you how to pick out a horse and some common practices used at a sale barn that are maybe less than honest to beware of. There is a lot to learn from the mistakes I have made. You don’t want to miss it!
It looks like this may be a three or four part series. Don’t worry, I won’t throw all the information at you at once, mostly because my mind goes in way too many directions to focus on one thing that long, we’ll give you a few breaks.
Thank you for joining us here at the barnyard and here’s to March “in like a lion, out like a lamb!”
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