Sale Season

Around the time when the air gets crisp and football gets intense, you’ll find cowboys from across the nation trekking to Oklahoma City.  In late October and mid-January, Heritage Place hosts two of the biggest sales for quarter horses: the Heritage Place Fall Mixed Sale and the Heritage Place Winter Mixed Sale. During these two most  recent sales, more than 1800 horses were consigned.      

Attending a sale at Heritage Place is like going to a family reunion with your business partners and industry rivals.  In the mornings, the sale barn is chilly, yet still warm as you are greeted over and over by familiar faces, many of whom have attended sales for years on end.  At 10 A.M., business begins and the constant yap from the auctioneer can be clearly heard from the sale ring to the tents.  

While horses can be sold at any time through private sales, buying and selling through the auction house is a special experience.  Andy Rivera recently attended both the fall and winter sales with horses to sell, but eyes open for a prize purchase.  Like many seasoned horsemen, at any given time, you can find Andy Rivera holding a bulky catalog, pages folded to mark horses of interest, hunting for that next prized purchase.  

When a horse of interest is finally in the ring, Andy likes to be in the thick crowd outside the sale ring entrance. The atmosphere is lively and loud, with many serious bidders posting there.  Andy himself will admit at times he gets carried away in the energy of bidding, raising his hand one or two more times than he originally planned.  Luckily, he’s never walked away with a horse he didn’t truly intend to purchase. 

After years of attending sales, Andy has a process he follows each time: checking his horses, marking the catalog, viewing prospects and spending some time with his friends and industry peers.  With hundreds of horses consigned to sell, there’s plenty of downtime to visit.  At the Winter Mixed Sale, Andy had some fun with friend Justin Hosea from Paragon Farms.  Many laughs were shared over these photos.    

Sale season has come to a close as the breeding season has begun.  The next big sale Andy will attend is the TQHA Sale followed by the New Mexico Bred Sale, Ruidoso Select and Heritage Place Yearling Sale. Watch for Rivera Farms New Mexico Bred Yearlings to be shared in the near future. They will sell in August. We will have to wait and see if he brings any new horses home!