It’s possible that last week I overcommitted to the point of driving myself right off the edge of sanity. I’ve had a couple blog posts half-drafted for ages with the full intention of running them as a “second” one during the week rather than just the once a week updates I seem to be managing as of late, but I haven’t had time to sit down and finish them. All that to say here I am, once again, offering you a weekly update.

Last week was mostly filled with copywriting, pedigree reports, consults, content creation, social media stuff, and a few days of working retail. I’ve been trying my best to keep my schedule mostly clear on Tuesdays (aside from riding) since that seems to be working out as the best option for a day off. And it just so happened that last Tuesday was the winter mixed sale at OBS. What better way to enjoy an afternoon than by looking at ponies you cannot afford?

The fun thing about the Mixed Sale is that – as the name implies – it has literally everything. Preggo mares, yearlings, two year olds, horses of racing age (HRA), and sometimes even stallions. These sales are a little more fun to me than the yearling ones, particularly because I like the seeing the ones that are 3 and 4.

Oh, also the other fun thing about any OBS sale is that there are always these ladies set up in a little nook near the cafeteria selling baked goods. Don’t sleep on the brownies, they’re fire. Bring cash.

Anyway, we did a little browsing at the walking ring while we paged through the catalog to look for anything that looked interesting on paper. There were a couple cute 2yos that came through, and a couple really nice pregnant mares. I thought our friend Sarah might lose the plot entirely and bid on one of the pregnant mares if her price stayed low (you never know with these sales, sometimes they go for a pittance, sometimes they go for way over what you’d think) but luckily the bidding went fast and she ended up expensive.

One of our vets was there too (she also has some racehorses) and when were oohing and aahing over the pedigrees of a couple in the HRA she was like “do you want to go look at them?”. No of course not. But also yes absolutely, lets go. So we trekked across to the other side of the barns to look at two in particular – a turf-bred colt and an Astern filly. The turf colt was not particularly attractive and had some physical issues. The Astern filly – true to every Astern I have yet seen with my own eyes – was gorgeous.

I thought Hillary might be in real trouble if that one went for cheap. She seemed to have a good temperament… the vet felt a couple potential issues upon a quick exam, then went to the repository to review her films on file. There were a few little things that might be iffy but also might not be. We went inside to the auction floor when it was her turn… ya know… just to see how much she went for. If she’d stayed under 3k someone in our group would have gotten her for sure. Luckily the bidding surpassed that and she ended up going for $5500. Still cheap, but not would-be-a-crime-not-to-buy level of cheap.

We stayed in there for a bit watching more horses come through, and towards the end this super leggy, awkward looking 3yo colt came in. His face looked so much like Presto, and I swear to you he looked me dead in the eye. I was like OH I LIKE THIS ONE. On paper I never would have picked him (and to be fair the growth stage he’s in at the moment is not cute) but they showed video of him galloping and OOOOOOOOO yes, that is my type. The gallop combined with his face had me on the edge of my seat.

And lord, I swear, I have never been so close to putting my hand up in the air at a Thoroughbred sale in my entire life. For a long agonizingly uncomfortable few seconds, he had no bids at the opening price of $1,000. My fingers were twitching. Finally someone stuck their hand up, and it went up to $1500 and then stalled again. My whole arm started twitching.

Thank GOD it picked up a little bit after that, and as soon as it passed 2k I was safely out of the danger zone. I mean… I could not have afforded him at any price (aside from the fact that you know what I DO NOT NEED? A THREE YEAR OLD COLT!) but can you imagine if no one had bid. Isn’t there an obligation at that point? Isn’t that how sales work? (I can feel all of you going no Amanda no it fucking isn’t – I don’t need your negativity, ok?)

Anyway. He went for $3500, which was still absurdly cheap, but past the limit of my own personal absurdity.

Despite our best efforts, our whole group did manage to escape the sale entirely unscathed. That was a close one. I did find the woman who bought Rebel and tell her to please contact me when he’s ready to retire (hopefully in like a year or two? RRP ’25 or ’26?) and she was super nice and sent me more pics of him and said she’d keep me updated on him. I love finding the good racetrack people.

The other fun noteworthy thing I did last week was that I finally had another jump lesson on Presto – his first one since we started ulcer treatment. I mostly wanted to get a gauge of where he’s at and how he’s feeling. And well… he feels fantastic. We kept everything small and simple for him, under 1m, but he really felt like my GoodGood horse again. I hadn’t even really realized how incrementally he’d gotten a bit behind my leg or a bit less enthusiastic over the past couple months, but last week he was locking onto everything and taking me to it like the Presto we all know and love. No bullshit, just doing his job that he loves. It felt like he’s back, which was fantastic.

I didn’t get any video or pictures, but hopefully this week we can go back again and then start looking at XC schooling. Hopefully we’re back on track now!