It’s a known fact that we horse people are a crazy bunch. But some of the stories I hear make me wonder if all of our common sense has been dropped in pursuit of gaining more horse sense, and the result is a bunch of daft idiots. Take, for instance, this news item from the March 31, 2010 edition of the Des Moines Register newspaper:
“Authorities say an 81-year-old Minnesota woman was hospitalized after she was trampled by a draft horse at the Waverly Midwest Horse Sale. Officers say the woman was near a door in the sale barn last week when a horse spooked and started running. He says the woman suffered serious head trauma and was bleeding badly…was taken to the Waverly Health Center and later airlifted to an unnamed hospital.”
I have personally witnessed several horse sale barn auctions where the ring is so filled with spectators that it is hard for the horses to fit through the gate, and even more difficult for buyers to get a clear view of the horse being sold. In these instances, I just want to stand up and yell at these dummies…and that is not my nature at all! But seriously, who in their right mind stands in the enclosed tight quarters of a sale ring with a myriad of horses coming through with the power and propensity to send them flying (literally) to emergency services in another town?!!! And who was accompanying this ill-placed grandma to the sale—couldn’t someone have quickly offered her a seat in a safer area? I don’t care how packed the barn is—there is no need for anyone in the sale ring other than the handler of the horse and perhaps an auctioneer’s assistant. All spectators should be banned, especially if they’re not smart enough to stand in a safer place!
When it comes down to it, the sale barn owners should have stricter rules for these types of sales. Most of these smaller midwest auctions are held in sale barns typically used for cattle, and the rings are not very large. Seating is usually scarce at a horse sale, and the closer seats fill up first, with the kids in the higher balcony-seats and the show offs standing in the gates and the sale ring itself. I propose a policy that would give anyone with a buyer’s number a good seat, all tire kickers and casual spectators the balcony-seats, and absolutely no one in the sale ring that isn’t handling or selling the horse. It would not only be safer, but be much more enjoyable for the rest of us who are trying to see the horse in the ring.
Anyway, that’s just one of the many things you can find at an auction that goes to show we horse people have no common sense. I won’t even get started on some of the people who are bidding….nor will I mention the people who have bred and are responsible for some of the poor sad creatures you see brought through these auction rings! That is a whole other rant in itself. Some horse people just ought to be horse-whipped.
