[QUOTE=Iron Horse Farm;4254308]
Don’t know where you get your info, but that is still how O’Neil makes his living. He was invited by te auctioneers because he always “cleans up” and takes anything that otherwise won’t sell.
The QH mare did go to Horse’s Haven and will have a home for life.
The Muirhead brothers were on the stairs but disappeared after I bought the 1st pony for $275. Their trailer was no longer there at the end of the auction.[/QUOTE]
Well I can tell you that first only one of them was there, that was O’neill. ok let me rephrase that, when I got there, which was late, only O’Neil was there. He was there the whole sale in the pen. My truck was parked next to the trailer which was there when I went to pay for my pony. He was invited by the Auctioneers so they could let slip that there was a kill buyer in the audience and that would boost bids, the auction house gets a 25% commission… of course they wanted people to think they were saving these poor ponies.
As far as O’neil “cleaning” up, your right. He takes what there is, puts them in his pasture and has one of the girls ride them and then sells them. In the case of these ponies he would have had one of the girls break them and then send them to one of the schooling barns or me. O’neil knows a good horse when there is one.
As far as him making his living off of selling horses for meat…Do you know what it cost to ship a trailer of horses into Canada? Do you know the price of meat per pound? If you did then you know that even with a trailer load of cheap ponies he would barely break even. Trust me in that he does not make a living in selling horses for meat. There is no longer a living to be made by selling slaughter horses (and people wonder at the surplus of starved horses…but that’s a whole different topic) Even when meat was a good market he sold the ones that were good, sound, and sane to people. and shipped the old or lame to slaughter.
I don’t know if that’s for sure or not … just what she said and she didn’t know how many they got.