Arthur Auction

A Thoroughbred dispersal sale was held today in Arthur, IL at the Arthur sale barn. Mark offered to go with me and of course I wanted to be there early to look over all the horses. What we didn't know is over 60 Standardbreds were to sell first with the Thoroughbreds later. The sale was to start at 11:00am and I made sure we were down there by 10:30am which meant we needed to leave the farm by 7:30am. We stopped in LeRoy, IL for gas and breakfast at Woody's where they have a very nice breakfast buffet for $7.00 each. The food was good, lots of crunchy veggies in the eggs, the eggs were real, not the fake stuff some buffets offer and the fruit was delicious. The auction didn't start on time but no problem, I had my trusty kindle and Mark had his Ipad. Around 11:30 the Standardbreds started going through the auction. There were some really beautiful horses and some very cute foals.

These horses were all from racing farms, well kept, high quality and the prices reflected this.

When this black mare came into the auction Mark suggested bidding, he was told, "we can't afford her." and sure enough she brought over $5000.00.

Finally the cataloged Standardbreds were done and I got my number ready, then the announcer announces they were starting on the supplement horses before going on to the Thoroughbreds. At this point Mark left to stretch his legs and find a drink. I was visiting with my neighbor when a nice big black mare came through. She was not listed in the catalog and I missed her age but looking at her she was obviously pregnant. I asked the neighbor to the left if the announcer said she was 7 and he thought so. Ours was the winning bid. When Mark got back I asked him to go look up number 113 and find out everything about her as she was ours. He came back with the bad news she was born in 1991 making her 21 years old and the card on the door stated she was open (not bred) BUMMER. Now not only are we the owner of a big black Standardbred mare, we know next to nothing about her. Her papers will be mailed to us later. We will have to have Dr. Hoerr come out to find out if she really is open, her belly sticks out on both sides but not like a hay belly, just like a pregnant mare. The only other mare I bought is a big brown 10 year old Thoroughbred mare in foal due in a month. Her name is Beautiful Clair and is bred to a big black racing stallion named Maddy's Lion. She was never raced but the caretaker said she was broke to ride. She is too heavy in foal to try, we will see later exactly what broke to ride means in the Thoroughbred world. Both mares are really sweet and both loaded without any drama and we were on our way home. A mile before the LeRoy exit we see thick black smoke in the side mirror. Thinking a tire blew the truck was pulled quickly to the side of the interstate where we discover all tires are good, the smoke is coming from our Engine. We are not over heating, our oil is not low, all fluids look good. We limped into the same place we stopped for breakfast. I filled the gas tank while Mark crawled under the truck to find the transmission fluid dripping onto the exhaust manifold. We decided to let it cool down and went inside and had dinner at Woody's. Their dinner buffet was just as good as the breakfast buffet only this time it cost $10.95 each. After a quick dinner we were back on the road driving 55 the rest of the way home arriving at 6:45pm. Steven was here when we arrived and helped unload both mares. They were put in the stalls and the central air turned on where it quickly dropped the inside temperature from 89 degrees to the set point of 80. Both mares were hot and tired. Below is Mytross Hanover the black 21 year old Standardbred mare:

Beautiful Clair the 10 year old Thoroughbred mare is pictured below. She is out of Clairleen by It's Freezing.