I-90 Sale - Does anyone have the prices?

[Dona]

WOW...... a pinto mare with show record bred to a BOB son went for under $500!!! :new_shocked: Now that is just pathetic. It's great for the buyers....but where is the industry headed when auctions (except for a select few National auctions that draw BIG money buyers) can only bring those VERY low prices?

It is said.....a "good horse" will always bring good money. But that is only true if you market them properly.

:

 

[wildhorses]

I wasn't going to add my two cents to this thread, but I have too. This was such a disappointing sale for the sellers. I felt so bad for the one consigner from Ventura farm who brought ten stunning horses, he was so helpful prior to and during the sale, and all were so beautifully groomed, beautifully presented, offered with professional photos which were provided, mares selling exposed to top bred stallions, and still it wasn't enough for bidders to hardly bid. Such a phenominal opportunity for people to take advantage of and people missed the boat, and the ones that did sell were steals. All we ever seem to hear is that there are never good quality horses available at auction and here they were right in front of our face, and people didn't take advantage of it. I wasn't there to buy as I am not in the market right now, but boy I sure wish I would have been. There were alot of nice horses that sold for little money and many that just went home. Very frusterating for these people that try to bring a good sale to people and get slapped in the face.

Like any sale there were 3 classes of horses, High quality, mid quality, and low quality. This was the worst sale in the 4 year history of the sale as far as prices. It is by far the nicest horse sale facility I have every attended where public auctions are held. The I 90 Expo Center is a great place. Each horse has its own individual box stall, in a fully enclosed barn. There is a large indoor arena where you can show your horses, drive them, warm them up, etc. The sale ring is very large with great seating area, A cafe and concession stand with great food. The sales managment and owners of the facility are so friendly, and walked around and met the people at the sale and introduced themselves, I met both the manager of the sale and the owner of the facility. I was just very impressed at what a nice facility the Expo Center is.

I really don't know what more people can do to sell their horses and what more people want. It really has me doubting whether or not I even want to breed quality miniature horses any more after seeing the trend of this sale. When horses that are ungroomed, unbathed, untrimmed hooves, with poor bloodlines, worms in their belly, etc. can walk in a sale ring and bring twice the money of a horse that is professionally presented and bred to the hilt, there is a problem. The junk sure seems to sell, and sure seems to be what everyone wants to pay for. They would rather buy ten $300.00 horses than one $3,000.00 horse.....doesn't make much sense to me.

So I don't know where the trend is heading. All I know is the Midwest has some of the nicest horses in the industry, and if the midwest doesn't start supporting each other, we will never turn this trend around. I wish I had the answers. There were some great horses presented to they buyers at that sale.....the buyers were just asleep and the few that woke up and took advantage of the situation really got their money's worth an then some! Will keep our fingers crossed that the trend turns around!

 

[JWC sr.]

You know sitting here thinking about the sale as so many of you have described it really could put you into a funk. We have one of the best products (the American Miniature Horse) that anyone could ever ask for and it seems folks just do not know about it many times. Additionally while things are not depressed around here as far as sales, it is still disturbing to see folks have to sell good horses for less than they are worth.

Every time I see the Alpaca ads on TV, I have the same thought. Why aren't the national registries doing something to market these great little horses to the general public. Lord knows 8 years ago you could not give away an alpaca and now look what they are bringing due to a good marketing stradegy. I guess instead of waiting on one of the registries to put some sizzle into these mini's, a group of us will have to try and do it ourselves like the alpaca group has.

Just my thoughts,

:saludando:

 

[littlearab]

I was not there, but I had contacted a seller about a stallion he had for sale, The stallion was price over of my budget. He said it was going to be consigned to the I90 sale. I could not go to the sale and did not feel I could call in a bid with out a sure haul home. And was sure the horse would sell out of my range anyway.

Yesterday the man called me and asked if I still interested in the stallion, he said he no sale him and that the sale was a shock... he said "I do not know what to say, people do not what to buy good horses at reasonable prices. They want to pay next nothing and buy garbage. At the sale they paid next to nothing for horses worth much more. And some real nice horses they could not even get a bid, but they bid on the garbage. " You could hear the saddest in his voice.

I told him I was sorry. But I had agreed to buy another stallion, actually his stallion full brother just the day before. I was shocked that that stallion did not top the sale.

I agree with JWC sr this is the best idea I've heard in along time.

It is over due.. I'm not a big breeder,but would put in my few pennies.

: Or maybe it time for the AMHR and AMHA to do some public adds. There is a beef and dairy check offs to pay for such adds. Maybe some of our registertion fees could go to this?

 

[Yaddax3]

There were some great horses presented to they buyers at that sale.....the buyers were just asleep

Too many miniature horses are being bred each year. And too many people have a glut of them.

There is more supply than demand.

Even you weren't there to buy, though there were great buys.

 

[Sanny]

I wasn't going to add my two cents to this thread, but I have too. This was such a disappointing sale for the sellers. I felt so bad for the one consigner from Ventura farm who brought ten stunning horses, he was so helpful prior to and during the sale, and all were so beautifully groomed, beautifully presented, offered with professional photos which were provided, mares selling exposed to top bred stallions, and still it wasn't enough for bidders to hardly bid. Such a phenominal opportunity for people to take advantage of and people missed the boat, and the ones that did sell were steals. All we ever seem to hear is that there are never good quality horses available at auction and here they were right in front of our face, and people didn't take advantage of it. I wasn't there to buy as I am not in the market right now, but boy I sure wish I would have been. There were alot of nice horses that sold for little money and many that just went home. Very frusterating for these people that try to bring a good sale to people and get slapped in the face.

Like any sale there were 3 classes of horses, High quality, mid quality, and low quality. This was the worst sale in the 4 year history of the sale as far as prices. It is by far the nicest horse sale facility I have every attended where public auctions are held. The I 90 Expo Center is a great place. Each horse has its own individual box stall, in a fully enclosed barn. There is a large indoor arena where you can show your horses, drive them, warm them up, etc. The sale ring is very large with great seating area, A cafe and concession stand with great food. The sales managment and owners of the facility are so friendly, and walked around and met the people at the sale and introduced themselves, I met both the manager of the sale and the owner of the facility. I was just very impressed at what a nice facility the Expo Center is.

I really don't know what more people can do to sell their horses and what more people want. It really has me doubting whether or not I even want to breed quality miniature horses any more after seeing the trend of this sale. When horses that are ungroomed, unbathed, untrimmed hooves, with poor bloodlines, worms in their belly, etc. can walk in a sale ring and bring twice the money of a horse that is professionally presented and bred to the hilt, there is a problem. The junk sure seems to sell, and sure seems to be what everyone wants to pay for. They would rather buy ten $300.00 horses than one $3,000.00 horse.....doesn't make much sense to me.

So I don't know where the trend is heading. All I know is the Midwest has some of the nicest horses in the industry, and if the midwest doesn't start supporting each other, we will never turn this trend around. I wish I had the answers. There were some great horses presented to they buyers at that sale.....the buyers were just asleep and the few that woke up and took advantage of the situation really got their money's worth an then some! Will keep our fingers crossed that the trend turns around!

DITTO.

This is a very nice sale though I will add what another mini person said at the sale that rang so true....

"for the most part at sales like this no matter how nice the horses are or how well run the sale is, you have to expect that the horses of all levels of quality will sell for "wholesale" prices - not neccessarily what they might be worth.

I will comment that I did see some bred mares sell that really IMO should not be breeding stock. They were the older style of mini - bigger head, long body, really short legs, etc. nice enough horses but really not what I'd consider breeding quality. I'm sure someone will say "breed them to the right stallion and you will get a nice baby". One of the mares like this sold in the ring and the stallion she was bred too was also sold and he was a carbon copy of her - same body style, even same coloring. They looked almost like twins. What kind of baby will they produce? Not "show quality" that's for sure.

After the preview on Friday night the people that run the I-90 did hold a meeting - which was well-attended and ran quite late - and asked a lot of questions and really wanted a lot of feedback. How to promote the mini & pony sale, what people would like to see, what questions or concerns people had and also wanted to talk about possibly also holding a show at their facility -- maybe in conjuction with a sale in the future -- and also maybe offering some sort of paybacks (we all love those!) They work really hard and are committed to doing better in the future and are very open to comments and suggestions. (and no I don't know them at all so I'm not just trying to promote their business)

 

[Lewella]

Wish I would have been there on Friday night - I would have certainly given my 2 cents worth on how some things could be improved! A huge improvement - and somewhere this sale has been lacking since the very first one - would be actually mailing catalogs more than a couple of days before the sale to those who request them. I know of several people who would have attended if they would have had any idea what was on the sale. It may be the computer age but there are still people who do not have internet access and an internet only catalog is going to miss some of your market. They need to stick with their catalog deadline so they can do this - consignment letters stated the catalog would be going to the printer on October 6th yet the sale order wasn't even finalized until a few days before the sale. I know of several consignors who has their consigments in before that deadline and their animals still didn't make it on to the online catalog until October 16 or later. Consignments should also be limited to around 100 head - by lot 100 the stands were getting pretty bare and there were 40+ lots left to go. :no:

 

[Nancy G]

It would be great if consignments were kept under 100. The people that profit from the auctions are those that hold the sales. The more consignments, the more $$ and then add on the commission fees. The sellers are giving away their horses and local breeders are losing sales because of so many horses being brought into their area.

Here in Pennsylvania, there are two miniature horse auctions. They both hold auction`s spring and fall. They consign horses from maybe 10 states. The auction this week already has 202 horses consigned :new_shocked: and 23 donkeys. The sale will last into the evening hours I`m sure. Both of the sales are withing 1.5 hours of us & bring in well over 500 horses a year. It is getting hard to sell horses from your farm. There used to be a nice market for geldings, no longer true. :no: AND when people buy a mare for $500 or so at auction they then turn around and sell their foals for $200-$500. After all, they don`t have much tied up in their stock. Very often poor qualirty & sold with registration papers.

Not a good thing for our industry. It is very sad to me even though we won`t be breeding for too many more years (getting old) LOL Next year, we will not be breeding many mares.

 

[Jean_B]

A number of years ago I toyed with the idea of putting on an "Upper Midwest SELECT Explosion" -- which would NOT be a consignment sale. There would be horses from the upper midwest (back when I used to live there) that would be hand picked. Some of the Upper Midwest's very best. Yes, people could nominate horses, but then a small group would go to the farm and evaluate the horse(s) to see if they were worthy of being in the auction. And if we saw one that we would rather see in the auction while there -- would tell the owner "sorry -- we don't think that horse should be in the sale...but how about that one?"

The idea was to have ABSOLUTELY no more than 50 horses in the sale.... and truly TOP FLIGHT sale. Top conformation. Top movement. Top pedigree. Top conditioning. A sale where nothing less than potential National Champions would be available. A top flight facility easily accessible to a major airport, and arrangements available for those that needed to be held for transport or export.

I had an advertising strategy all mapped out...tons of print ads. Tons of internet presence. A catelog that would go out well in advance of the event. And some incentives for consignors, winning bidders, and contending bidders (last to bid before the winning bid). I learned this strategy from one of the top Holstein auctioneers in the country....they had put on such a sale for Holsteins. It was located at the Southfork Ranch. Each consignor, each winning bidder, and each contending bidder was given a key. At the end of the sale - the key that started the car won it...and it was a Rolls Royce! (No, I wasn't planning on getting a Rolls, :new_shocked: but had some other ideas.)

And when I ran the idea past a lot of the people - quite a few were extremely excited and wanted "in". And some of them were downright P'd off because they view an auction as a place to dump their culls, and didn't like the idea that someone could tell them that the horse they wanted to consign wasn't good enough.

So after a lot of thinking about it (I had even discussed this with Tony to see if he would be our pedigree reader and he thought it was a pretty good idea) and realizing that I would have to tell some friends that the committee didn't want their horse in the sale...I tossed the idea. But I still think it is a good one! I just don't have the stomach to pull it off and deal with the flack when people were told "no". (Yes...old hard-headed me just didn't want to deal with the fall-out.)

 

[disneyhorse]

Auctions generally are places where you DUMP your culls. I most likely wouldn't go to an auction to buy a horse because of that specific reason. Most of the ''best'' horses are sold by private individuals, where the buyer has time to research the horse, ask for as much information about the horse, and comparison shop. It is personal, intimate.

I am uncomfortable buying from an auction just because I don't know exactly what I'm buying. I do like to ''gamble'' but it is difficult. I looked at a couple ponies at this particular auction, and they sold for a FIFTH of what I was willing to consider paying for them. But there was not time for me to ask seller for pictures of bite, legs, ect. and try to figure out how I'd ship the pony across the country... how would I arrange that straight from the auction house IF I was the winning bidder?

Auctions just are NOT the place to go for sellers if they are expecting good prices. And to ME, I would NEVER run any of MY horses through an auction because I CARE about where my horses go. NOT to the highest bidder. So for a seller to dump horses just to get some quick cash you have to expect low prices. That's the exchange you get. As a seller you don't have to spend time making videos and answering emails and phone calls and sending updated pictures of the horse. You don't have to negotiate contracts, or arrange for payments. You just get some cash and the deal is done.

WELL RUN, ADVERTISED, and CLASSY auctions CAN be successful. Little King Farm puts on a top rate sale, after all.

There's lots of junk out there, and if you breed more junk than you can easily sell for high prices to private buyers, then something has to be done with it. Just because an animal is ''well bred'' or ''in foal'' does not make it worth anything.

If you truly take the time to put a valuable horse on the ground, it will be worth your time to take care of it and work and advertise it to sell it.

Just my opinion...

Andrea

 

[tini-z]

A number of years ago I toyed with the idea of putting on an "Upper Midwest SELECT Explosion" -- which would NOT be a consignment sale. There would be horses from the upper midwest (back when I used to live there) that would be hand picked. Some of the Upper Midwest's very best. Yes, people could nominate horses, but then a small group would go to the farm and evaluate the horse(s) to see if they were worthy of being in the auction. And if we saw one that we would rather see in the auction while there -- would tell the owner "sorry -- we don't think that horse should be in the sale...but how about that one?"

The idea was to have ABSOLUTELY no more than 50 horses in the sale.... and truly TOP FLIGHT sale. Top conformation. Top movement. Top pedigree. Top conditioning. A sale where nothing less than potential National Champions would be available. A top flight facility easily accessible to a major airport, and arrangements available for those that needed to be held for transport or export.

I had an advertising strategy all mapped out...tons of print ads. Tons of internet presence. A catelog that would go out well in advance of the event. And some incentives for consignors, winning bidders, and contending bidders (last to bid before the winning bid). I learned this strategy from one of the top Holstein auctioneers in the country....they had put on such a sale for Holsteins. It was located at the Southfork Ranch. Each consignor, each winning bidder, and each contending bidder was given a key. At the end of the sale - the key that started the car won it...and it was a Rolls Royce! (No, I wasn't planning on getting a Rolls, :new_shocked: but had some other ideas.)

And when I ran the idea past a lot of the people - quite a few were extremely excited and wanted "in". And some of them were downright P'd off because they view an auction as a place to dump their culls, and didn't like the idea that someone could tell them that the horse they wanted to consign wasn't good enough.

So after a lot of thinking about it (I had even discussed this with Tony to see if he would be our pedigree reader and he thought it was a pretty good idea) and realizing that I would have to tell some friends that the committee didn't want their horse in the sale...I tossed the idea. But I still think it is a good one! I just don't have the stomach to pull it off and deal with the flack when people were told "no". (Yes...old hard-headed me just didn't want to deal with the fall-out.)

This is a very good idea! So it's easier for the Europeans also to know on what horses they bid. I often want to bid on some horses I was interesetd from reading the description or pedigree, but it was not possible to see a picture, or I can be sure horses are checked before. In Europe you will find inspected horses in a auction, so you know you bid on a correct horse.

I hope your idea will work in the future!

 

[kaykay]

i have to agree with mary lou. too many auctions do not take advantage of the internet. with gas prices etc i am not going to drive hours and hours to an auction if i cant at least preview the horses on the internet. The recent ohio auction is a good example. They had a page but most of us could nto get it to work.

If an auction doesnt put in the time to put up preview pics on the net (or even an actual mail catalogue) then i have to assume *(right or wrong) that there really isnt going to be much quality there.

Double Diamond always puts on a classy auction but I think with family problems this year it didnt get promoted etc like it normally does. They do have guidlines on what horses can be in the sale so do get better quality horses.

I will say I have never sold or bought yet at an auction. Like Disney i want to know who I am buying from and a total history on the horse. I dont think though that they are only for dumping culls. I do think there are a different generation of breeders that just cant get the hang of having a website and selling horses on the internet. Its just so foreign to them. They are so used to selling word of mouth and at a yearly auction. Just they way they have always done business. I have talked to several farms like this and tried to talk them into having an actual working website with currrent pictures but they just seem really resistent to it.

To say the market is gone is wrong. I saw tons of horses selling at the spring equine affair and tons selling at nationals.