Preparing yourself and your horse for a horse sale doesn’t start the day of, the week or even the month before the sale, it truly starts months in advance and it’s a lot of work. Usually consigning a horse to a sale, means you know exactly how much money you are willing to take for that horse, how much time you want to spend preparing that horse in the riding as well as looks and how much social media posting you want to do to advertise your horse. What does that look like though!? Well, I will break down how our program works for horses heading to the sale ring.
Starting with consigning. Most sales require pictures, videos and paperwork in order to consign your horse. We like to start with some good pictures. Though I would love to believe me, my husband, our two kids and an iphone camera will do the trick, more often than not, that ends up being a huge ordeal. Anyone else who is married to a cowboy will understand the jumping, hay-flinging, flag waving, frustration that comes with trying to get the perfect sales picture. Our plan of action is super simple… hire the PHOTOGRAPHER! We have an awesome gal, Lexi of Lexus Schmidt Photography that has done most of our beautiful sales pictures. Go ahead and save your marriage and hire her for some perfect pictures. After pictures, we usually gather good videos and paperwork to get our horses into a sale.
A big aspect of selling a horse at a sale will be the videos online. Most people come to a sale already having in mind which horse they want and a lot of that has to do with videos they see of your horses. Keeping videos really simple helps people get an idea of what that horse is capable of. Videos such as: loping both directions, stopping, turn arounds, how gentle the horse is, the horse doing his job (roping, ranch work, cutting, whatever that horse is trained in). This allows potential buyers to see what they will be bringing home without having to come ride the horse themselves.
Focusing on looks. Though this seems wild, a lot of buyers love a pretty horse and can you blame them! Getting a horse under lights, slicked off, athletic looking will go a lot further than you can imagine. Mane and tails sell. Bringing horses in every night to be under lights, as well as braiding their hair really helps get a horse looking the part. A good feed program that is high in fat and protein will also put a nice shine on a horse. Another trick I was taught was to always rinse your horse after a workout, the natural oils will help with a nice shiny sale horse. Looks are very important, but at the end of the day you can’t put lipstick on a pig, the horses we bring to sale represent our program, so we like to bring our best looking and best trained into that sale ring.
Most importantly though, we want our horses as broke as we claim for them to be, come sale day. Meaning if we are selling a finished head horse, we want to be able to guarantee that the horse is going to make the same run every time. Or if he is a two year old, he has as many rides as we say he does and he is ready to move into someone else’s program. This is something we prepare for months (if a two year old) or years if we’re selling an older horse. Buyers want to trust that you will present your best horses and training at a sale and that is something we strive for.
Last, but not least is the actual sale and sale day. Showing up looking put together for you and your horse is important. Our horses are bathed, blanketed and ready to show off what they can do! This is where all our hard work comes out to shine. Also, we like to look as put together as possible, at least as put together as we can manage with our two kids in tow. Sale day is always fun and exciting as well. Mingling with potential buyers, talking with other consignors and at the end of it all going into the sale ring, knowing we are putting out the best horse we can present.
Hey there!
My name is Anna Foulger, I am a young mom of soon to be two; a toddler daughter and little boy on the way! Me and my husband ranch in Eastern Montana with his family and we love every minute! My background is in...
