Pedigree Query

The ITOBA All Ages Sale is quickly approaching. There are currently 81 entries. Most are broodmares, but there are also some weanlings, yearlings, and racing aged horses. There may be a few more late entries before the sale. Several of the mares sell with 2009 seasons to El Nino, Pass Rush, or Leelanau. I would also offer sale specials to any mares who match well with Private Lap or Indy Mood. Catalog pages are available online: www.itoba.com

Also, remember that there will be several vendor booths at this sale, including one for Darby Dan Farm, where they will be offering pedigree consulting and sale specials on 2009 seasons to their stallions. Murphy's Trailer Sales will be there, as will Tractor Supply Co and several others. We will also have "Gold Rush" and "The Kingmaker" books, personally AUTOGRAPHED by Avalyn Hunter. So even if you're not in the market for a new horse, you should come out and take advantage of the sale specials and vendors; you might even get some early Christmas shopping done.

The sale will be at Crossroads USA Arena in Cloverdale, Indiana; it is a very nice, huge, fully enclosed and heated facility. There will be food vendors on site. Horses and vendors may begin arriving as early as Saturday morning (Nov. 22) to get settled in, so come early and check everything out. The actual sale will begin Sunday (Nov. 23) at 1:00 PM.

I will be there helping out T. Wente stables with their entries - walking and showing stock, grooming, etc. etc. I like to put faces to socks - so if there are PQ members attending I hope you will stop by and introduce yourselves!!

I really want to go - but I'm at a convention right before that. Maybe next year - sounds like fun, too!

There have been a few more supplemental entries consigned to this sale. All sale pages can be found at the ITOBA web site: www.itoba.com

There are currently 85 horses entered.

I had a GREAT time at the sale. Darby Dan had a nice booth and looked like they were totally SWAMPED all day Sunday - and they were the ONLY ONE THERE. The facility was a heckuvalot nicer than having the sale at a racetrack. I think, though, it would have been better if the facility had some signs outside. People couldn't find the place, and then they couldn't find the way IN! I LOVED the washracks - big tall concrete block walled washracks with hot and cold into the hose and drainage in the floor. Just heaven. Great bathrooms. Great concession stand that had free chili on Saturday for us worker bees doing prep. And the building was heated during the night. It was amazing.

The auctioneers were entirely unfamiliar with Thoroughbreds and having the sire names mispronounced and the significant horses and information in pedigrees overlooked was sort of strange. In my opinion, there were awesome values in the sale - horses, generally speaking, were bringing 10-30% of their worth (not ALL of them, of course - there were some there that were not even really worth the upset price of $500).

Unfortunately, there just weren't the buyers there. Our consignment only sold one in the ring, and it was the one the consignor I was working for thought we would get NO BID on!! Fortunately, quite a lot of horses were sold after the sale, and two of ours were moved that way so we only took two back.

The Super 8 motel was incredibly nice for $57 a night - pool, buffet breakfast, laundry, wifi, etc. etc. etc.

All in all it was a great first effort in a new facility. It was WELL ORGANIZED and much more professional. In the future though it might help to get the catalog out EARLIER, and to advertise to the sport horse folks and some other disciplines.

Bonaventure, if you are out there, please pm me with your email address.

Thanks, Madelyn, for your comments. The Sales Committee has already started making notes on what to improve on next year. What's sad is that I was there all day Sunday and never saw much of what you are referring to because I was in the office from morning until way after the sale was over. I was on my way out there Friday to put up stall signs and had a flat tire a few miles from the facility, got towed back home... never made it... sigh.

ANYWAY, I don't know what happened with vendors. We had several who were supposed to show up; but other than Darby Dan and one who did come just before the sale actually started, they were all no-shows! We did have several others who told us they could not come this year but would be very interested in future sales, so hopefully that won't happen again. I am VERY glad to hear that Darby Dan was busy... at least it sounds like it was worth the trip for them!

Agreed on the facility signs. I know it's a new place and I would imagine that's in the works, though. They've done such a nice job on the facility as a whole, I have to doubt that they would intentionally not provide signs in the long run.

I knew it would be a buyer's market, and it definitely was. However, I thought that the final results could have been a lot worse, considering the market right now and the results from other sales this Fall. And you're right... a LOT of "unsold" horses did actually sell after the sale; so overall I guess it's good to know that, for the most part, those who wanted to find buyers were able to do so.

Totally agreed on the catalog... and not my favorite topic at this time. Had SEVERAL issues crop up one right after another that kept pushing that back. The original timeline had them out at the beginning of the month, and any one or two of those issues would have still been OK, but all of them piling on one after another like that really killed the deadline. At least the catalog was available online for quite some time prior to the final mailing... that was the saving grace there.

Anyway, it was nice to see you again, even if it was only for 5 minutes after all the action was over. One of these days I'm going to finish early enough to socialize at one of these events.