January 3, 2013

On New Year’s Day there is a large annual horse auction that I like to spend the day with some friends at.  This year was no exception, and I drove up to the Thurmont, Maryland Horse Auction at Eylers Stables.  It is run by RSD Horse Auctions and is ordinarily a well run by-weekly Friday night auction.  But each New Year’s Day they have an extra-large sale with over 100 horses as well as new and used tack, trailers, hay, jumps, and just about anything else horse you can think of.

This year I drove up and arrived a little after 11am.  I was directed to park in the over flow parking field, which was covered in snow, and already a mud pit.  I had to pop my little truck into 4wheel drive just to get in and get parked.  Smartly, I let the vehicles ahead of me, which included horse trailers, get parked before I entered the field, and then I parked facing down a slight slope in the field, ready to get a running start toward the exit when it was time to leave.  My friend Lindsey had arrived shortly before me and was parked two over, and my friend Kim pulled in just a few cars behind me.

We three got geared up in our outdoor mud clothes, consisting of insulated coveralls and mid-calf muck boots, and headed on up.  By the time we started to walk away from our trucks we were mostly parked in by horse trailers that had gotten stuck trying to get in.

We looked at the horses and did not see any appropriate for me.  Stink.  So we spent some time looking at the stuff inside and outside for sale.  I picked up a heated water bucket for my chickens for $10, and that was the extent of my shopping for the day.  We watched the horse trailers get auctioned off and some of the new equipment and tack.  We ran into quite a few friends, and enjoyed some chit chat as the day wore on.

Kim drove a car, and with the help of friends Linda and Kelly, we were able to get her out when she was ready to leave.  Lindsey and I stuck around for a few more hours, just enjoying the people watching and each other’s company.  I popped inside with friends Zoe and Shelby to see a few of the horses go through the sale, including a massive paint draft nearly 18hands tall that sold for $2900.  He was fantastic.  I also saw a Friesian Sport Horse that Zoe liked, a couple nice quarter horses and paints and a cute appy molly mule go through the sale.  I wanted to check out the saddles being sold, but the auction room was too crowded to get into when they were being sold, so I missed out on that.  And Lindsey was interested in the used tack but it took so long for the massive selection to be gotten to, that we had mostly burned out by that time and decided to head out, grab dinner and head to our respective homes.

We watched some other trucks and trailers being pulled out, and we saw a few abandoned trailers stuck in the mud.  But we both waited until the exit was clear and then slid our trucks out of that place like mud bogging bosses, with total success.

All in all a fun way to kick off the new year.

*The auction does not allow photos to be taken inside the sale, so I only have photos of the mud pit, I mean parking lot.

Lindsey making her way to our trucks.