Horses in Love, continued
...
Below them hung a sign, "All singles
sold as is," with a cartoon of a scruffy wrangler who resembled
the broken down cowboys who hang out on the catwalk. I wondered
if any of them would try to pick me up after the sale.
Auction ring at Cattlemen's Livestock
Auction. This gelding is drenched with sweat from fear. Because
he is being sold riderless, a killer buyer will get him. Behind
him, to the left, is the iron gate through which livestock enters
the sale ring. Photo courtesy Carolyn Bertin.
Behind me was a semicircular auditorium.
Some 200 buyers and spectators crowded on vinyl upholstered benches.
In front of me a welded pipe fence some 6 ft high cordoned off
the sale ring. Inside, at each end of its oval, was a metal shield
behind which wranglers take shelter when livestock attack.
A tall sorrel quarterhorse under saddle
quick stepped into the ring. His rider whirled him in circles.
Then he slipped off the bridle while still on his back and pulled
a rein around the horse's neck. With just this rein he showed
that he could still control it.
But -- was there a contracted tendon on
the left foreleg? The horse didn't seem to be able to set his
hoof down flat. There is always some reason a horse is run through
this auction. It is the job of us buyers to figure out what that
reason is.
I wasn't the only one to notice the contracted
tendon. The sluggish bidding reached $600 dollars. The rider
jumped off the sorrel and in seconds pulled off the saddle. He
heaved it to an assistant who immediately lugged it out to the
line of waiting horses. They would prepare another to be ridden
into the ring.
A wrangler chased the sorrel around the
ring awhile more. Then an assistant heaved on a rope that went
through a pulley to open the iron exit gate. The sorrel ran through
it. The gate slammed with a sound like a fractured bell. The
horse ran over a twelve foot square scale which automatically
registered his weight. A red light display above the auctioneer
read out 1200 lbs. Another wrangler pulled on a rope and pulley
and the gate on the other side of the scale opened. The sorrel
dashed down a runway to the southwest holding pens.
"Sold Bill's Straightaway," cried
the auctioneer. That sorrel was headed for the cattle semis.
And Ft. Worth. And French or Belgian dinner plates.
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