Horse auction and Lego

The day had finally come. Tara could hardly sleep the night before; her excitement too great. "How early can you leave work Richard? What if I drive you? Can you leave earlier then?" It was the day of the horse auction.

We headed up to Listowel for Caron's Horse Auction. We got there around 3:30 and right away Tara started checking out horses that she had flagged in the pre-auction listing (and some that she hadn't). She had marked 18 that she was interested in; one by one they each got a once over. A few got a twice over, and a couple got a thorough vet check. Lung sounds, heart sounds, leg flexes, joint palpation, and of course the eye exam. At the end of it all, she had seen most of her 18 and none of them were up to her standards. A little disappointed, we went to the auction ring to watch.

After 45 minutes or so, we went to find some of the horses that we couldn't find earlier and to see if there were any late additions not in the pre-auction listings. We found number 71, the brother of one of the horses Tara was really interested in (but had ruled out). Tara gave him the once over and a quick medical check and then decided to bid on him. We went back to the auction ring and waited for him to arrive.

When he came into the ring, he acted quite nervous, but had nice movement. Tara made up her mind and stuck up her card. She had bid on the horse!

Quickly she was out bid. The auctioneer looked at her again and Tara gave the nod. "Once, twice, sold to the girl with the huge grin on her face." We had bought ourselves a horse! So without further ado, I present the newest member of our family: Lego

Lego and his rider

Tara paid up, the owners got their cheque and we headed for Tara's new barn. Lego loaded and unloaded like a dream. At 11:30pm or so, we arrived home and climbed into bed.

The next day was spent buying tack for this 17h horse (a bit of a step up from 15.2h King who Tara previously rode), buying vaccines and going to the barn to visit Lego.

The auction and subsequent day gave me a lot of practice with my camera. I snapped a fair number of shots and I've posted the ones I really like below. More are posted a Picassa Web Album.

He even has a Marlboro

This is a little overexposed, but I really like it regardless

This little kid lit up his eyes when he saw my camera. I wish I hadn't been in such a hurry to get wherever I was going, but the blurring doesn't seem too out of place.

Lego looking pretty. Plus he has a little friend (no, that's not a speck of dust on my lens) :)

This picture deserves a little explanation. As I was pulling the car over to the horse trailer, we saw these two girls trying to stuff a donkey into the the back seat of a red pickup. Soon a third guy started helping. Eventually they got the donkey into the truck but boy was it rocking. After a good 10 minutes, and a long hard thought about driving a donkey (which they had bid on accidentally) all the way up to Barrie in their daddy's nice pickup, they opened the door and let him out. Last I heard they were going to try to find a buyer for the poor guy.