news from mount hope horse sale

[mitchmaine]

Just back from a week in mt. hope, ohio, and Columbus day horse sale. Horses were selling good. There were about 1000 catalogued, another 3-400 uncataloged, and 4-500 horses in the Saturday sale. Lots to choose from. Prices were good (too high for us), and lots of machinery on tuesday. Wedsnesday was cross breed day and sold cross drafts, ponies andpulling ponies, saddle horses, buggy horses, clydes, a shire, spotteds, fijords, mules and morgans. A bargain now and then, but teams were bringing $1600 to 2500 per horse x 2.
Weds was Belgian day with haflingers and Friday was perch day. Buggy horses on Saturday.
One big perceron gelding brought $7400. And some nice teams brought $4000. Twice. So we didn’t bring any horses home but sold three and trucked two back to mass. And maine. So we got our trip paid for and saw some country side.
We thought horses might be inexpensive, seeing hay and corn were down in ohio. Hay bringing $400 per ton. But people from places where hay was cheap seemed to be buying and trucking. Who knows?

[Does’ Leap]

Hey Mitch:

Thanks for the update. Did any bays (belg/perch crosses) come up in the sale? Just curious…

George

[mitchmaine]

hi george,
several teams, morgan perch and bel. perch, pretty horses. older teams, though, smooth mouth,$3200 plus per team. i like the crosses, always had good luck with them. lots of horses to choose from. and people too. standing room only on the crossbred day. much less people on thursday and friday.

[Does’ Leap]

Mitch, what do you mean by “smooth mouth”? Also when you mentioned older teams, are you talking teenagers? I am also interested to hear about your experience buying horses at auction. I have only been to a few auctions and have never bought a horse at one. Are you able to get a good look at the horses before the bidding starts? When you have purchased horses at auction, were they what you expected? Any tips for those of us who might buy at an auction in the future? Finally, did you see many shorter, stouter chunks or were most of the horses tall and “hitchy”?

Thanks.

George

[mitchmaine]

hi george,
smoothmouth means 12 years age. older teams are 9, 10 and older. the amish like them up to about then. most of them breed colts for themselves and the auction, so they are getting taller all the time, and i guess that means they are making them suitable to hitch teams as well but that is a guess. your chunks are very hard to find now, though some do come in. mind that i have only experience at this one auction house, been to dover but never waverly or some of the other big sales.
the “hitch commitee” hooks most of the horses the day before their sale so you can look at them and drive them and talk to the owners. they give the health of the animal as they sell nthe horse, but it goes quick and you have to be on your toes. if you find a glaring fault in the barn that the owner didn’t mention, feet, wind or something you can cancel, but once you buy or pay for them they are yours.
a team goes for twice the money meaning you bid on one horse, and if you are successful, you get your choice of either horse or both for twice the money. and you are free to bid on the other horse and maybe get him cheaper but that doesn’t always work. the uncataloged horses never get hooked and come through fast so you don’t get much time to look for nproblems. a quick look at the feet and legs up to the body and eye and your too late they are already gone. they line up outside the barn a few deep and you can talk with the owners a bit and follow a team you like up to the chain and have an auctioneer about six feet away. that works good, but if you have a seat in the barn they come by you pretty fast, and anyone who can actually hear what the auctioneer is saying is better than i. the number he repeats is the bid he is after or asking for, the real bid is less and might be yours. but if you have bid they keep you in view and ask with their hands if you want to continue. lot of fun, and after a few auctions and talking to owners they become familiar and friendly. don’t know what else to say

[Does’ Leap]

Thanks Mitch, very interesting and informative. Sounds like fun.

George

[mitchmaine]

Strange thing happened this year at the auction. Never seen it before.
There has always been a no sale. If you have a minimum bid and don’t mind losing $50 besides the 5% on bid price, you can always take your own horse back home with you. I don’t mind that at all. But this year, the auctioneer started asking the winning bidder(in a no sale) if he wanted to spend the extra to take the horse, and if not, anyone else. ???????????????? its an AUCTION, why don’t they just start at the minimum bid?
The highest bidder is the highest bidder. If the owner doesn’t like the bid, tough luck.
Any one else have feelings about this?

[grey]

I’ve only been to a couple different auctions but I do the Small Farmers Journal auction each year. If there’s a minimum on an item, you don’t typically find out about it unless there has been some interest (at least one bid) but the bidding stalls out before the minimumis reached. If the auctioneer can’t milk it up high enough to pass the minimum on the item, he’ll say that the minimum is so much and does anyone want to bid that? If they don’t and if the consigner is in the house (and if they know who the consigner is by sight), they might ask the consigner if he’ll accept the current bid. There’s a fee for the consigner to set a minimum, though, so it’s only the big items that might have one.

[mitchmaine]

thanks grey. the problem for me is after you spend some time bringing a good healthy bidding battle up a couple thousand dollars to stall a couple hundred bucks short, and then get asked if you want to throw in the remaider, i might have just bought the horse out back on the lot, thats all. the point of going to auction for me anyway is the chancfe to buy a horse right. thanks for your reply.

[steve]

I truck a bit for the amish so i attend most sales in sw ontario. In the last couple of years the auctioneer announces the seller is protect their own ; highest bid takes it home.Meaning the owner CAN and WILL bid you up so once you you been to a few you get to know who the dealers are. and the good sales usually state who and where the horses are going.

[grey]

Steve – so if the owner bids it up and gets stuck with high bid, he pays that? To take his own animal back home?

Mitchmaine – I can understand the frustration. I once thought I was going to take home a very nice wagon at a very nice price until I found out that I was still a grand shy of the reserve. So close…. yet so far away! That was disappointing.

[grey]

The SFJ sale has a few different auctioneers but there’s one that is in the habit of doing something that I feel is dirty. He’ll start off asking for an opening bid – say, $5 – then immediately jump to a higher amount – say, $10 – and ask for that instead. If you aren’t watching for it and aren’t paying very close attention and don’t already know about this practice, you’d think that he’d gotten a bid for $5 and was moving on. However, in reality he has not gotten any bids yet. A person could still get in at $5. That really winds me up.

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