We need a quiet first ridden pony for our teaching barn/summer camp and our budget is terribly low. I also hate to see these horses betrayed in this way but I am terrified of buying at New Holland. How much can you find out about a pony before it goes into the ring? How much can you handle them? Can you get a vet to look at them?
Donât think thereâs too much you can find out ahead of time, but I am sure the prices arenât too high, especially before Cranbury or the KBs buy them. Iâd contact Melissa Harper on FBâŠShe could probably help direct you, or someone that may go the night before to look them over, see who you could chat with.
I wouldnât have their vet place any hand on any of my horses, soâŠnot sure if there are other vets around.
not all camps do this
Owner of 2 killpen horses here, I so do not need to read this post. It makes me physically sick. Heartless, soulless individuals. Hopefully there is a special room in Hell for them.
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This post is from August 2017.
Not sure if the sale is taking place again this yearâŠ
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https://www.facebook.com/127296490647422/photos/a.555504294493304/1926067850770268/?type=3&theater
The poster, Little Brook Farm in NY, shared the posting for this yearâs camp horses. The posting says Alice Witherall is actually trying to find the horses homes so they do not have to be sent to auction.
The whole thing sounds iffy to me and I wish I knew what camps were dumping their horses so we could make sure they feel it in the walletâŠ
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One thing that you could do is buy one with the mental understanding that if it doesnât work youâll bring it back to NH and try again. If you can stomach that. It means at least one of these horses will get a CHANCE and if you pay meat price, you should be able to get that same thing back if you have to return the horse and resell it. Itâs at least a possible way out for one of these horses. My old trainer did it ALL THE TIME. Rarely did he have to take one back, usually he could make something of it and resell it-- and think how many horses got out because he was willing to take a chance? It sucks to have to bring one back, but it might be the way that you make it possible to try to make this work.
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No, the posting says people have offered to buy them from her before the auction and she has refused to sell them beforehand. âAlice Witherall has been asked to sell these horses before going to auction to reduce their stress, potential injury and exposure to disease but she refused.â
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What a sad controlling bitch she (alice) must be to do this to these horsesâŠ
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WOW major fail on my part. Thanks for catching that.
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This whole thing is such a shame. I feel like even if you did need to sell the camp horses every year, it could be handled much better - kid-safe, kind, tolerant horses are worth something. If we were in a better place right now so I could look for a pony for the kids, Iâd be very interested in a sale like that, as opposed to New Holland.
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Iâm wondering if these are the ones that are not quite so kid-safe and tolerant. It seems like she is a dealer and supplies multiple camps so I imagine she has a few hundred horses overall.
The camp horse guys I knew did buy and sell a bit at auction, but for the most part they kept the ones that were good at the camp horse job. You saw most of the same ones at camp every year with a few new ones. If something was going to auction, it was because it wasnât working out. The way to get the good ones was to become their winter free lease home for a number of years. You had them 9 months of the year and then you would usually be offered to buy them first when they were ready to retire.
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The ones that donât should advertise it.
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I imagine it is more about not wanting crazy people calling her all the time. Once you start inviting people to come onto your property with the knowledge that you also sell via auction, it invites crazies.
As far as selling at New Holland, I knew a lot of horse dealers that would go specifically to these types of sales to pick up horses for resale or lease. They would got just about every Monday but these sales in particular had a lot of nice horses. It has been a while since I accompanied horse dealers to New Holland but you can ride them in the back and look most of them over close and personal. I bought my first horse on the back side of New Holland, with the help of a horse dealer friend. He was even so into me buying the horse he paid for it and I paid him back. I went to talk to him about buying a horse, I wasnât expecting to buy one that day.
I also went with an ex and bought another horse some years later. The kill buyers will stop bidding if someone else shows interest and we got that one for kill prices.
The one horse dealer I knew only ever sent one horse back to New Holland. A 2 year old he sent to get broke, came back spitting fire. He sent it back to the guys that broke him and it came back again spitting fire so he sent it back to New Holland marked for the kill pen. Knowing what I know now, it may have just been a quirky horse and the right person may have done well with it but it certainly wasnât kid safe, or most anyone safe.
I donât have the same highly negative feelings towards New Holland and the dealers that buy/sell through there - itâs a big auction and you can find some nice horses there. It is also a way of life for many people. They have been buying and selling through New Holland forever and thatâs just how they do things.
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Most of the camps of this type lease the horses for the summer. Often the camp management isnât particularly horsey and doesnât want to hear about it, and the staff are horsey college kids who do it for a couple of years and graduate and get real jobs or get disgusted and quit. The camp kids Iâm sure would be horrified but mostly arenât from horsey backgrounds and they and the parents donât have a clue. And it is mostly the horses that arenât a great fit for whatever reason that go, the better ones are leased over the winter or turned out.
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My daughterâs camp rents its horses from a farm in NH. All the horses are for sale, but I donât believe they get auctioned off at the end of the summer. Rather, I think they come from these sales. I would ask them about whether any horses go to auction, but could I trust the answer? Iâm not sure.
Sigh. Yâall have reminded me that I want to be wealthy, so I can buy all these horses and give them a new life. I am not going to get wealthy through my career, so I had better think of something elseâŠ
The other thing the cynic in my thinks of is whether there is any way to know if these horses were REALLY used in summer camps, or is it just a handy tag to put on them to gain more sympathy and make people think theyâre better horses than they are, to drive up auction prices?
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My earliest visit to New Holland was with a 4-H group way back in the 80âs - New Holland Is and always has been Disgusting. Any place that has a âKill-Penâ and âDead Pileâ is a black mark on their community.
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Did anyone go to the sale today?
Curious to see if anyone went as wellâŠpoor things
