Wow! What a Saturday night!?! I met an awesome new person whom I completely admire his passion for bringing up youth in the sport of dressage and driving horses to the underprivleged intercity kids and so many more reasons like he’s just a wickedly funny Brit, Mr. Dane Rawlins. Well, back to the point. He was kind enough to invite me to the Equine Elite Auction (http://www.equineelite.nl/en/) this past Saturday evening and what fun!!! I’ve been to German auctions and they are quite interesting with fun entertainment but this was a complete festival which started in the afternoon. I couldn’t attend the afternoon events as I was having a TOTALLY AMAZING LESSON WITH ANKY on my mare so while I did miss the complete festivities, it was worth it for such a fabulous ride.
Here’s the arrival to Equine Elite pulling up the drive.
I arrived, valeted, entered and quickly noticed faces I’ve seen here and there in The Netherlands horse world but none I felt compelled enough to ask the protocol on seating. Earlier in the rainy afternoon during our shared lesson, I had met a fabulous and talented French rider, Bernadette Brune. I saw Bernadette in the hall and asked her if she knew about seating which she offered me to just sit with them at her table so I was able to enjoy the auction and horse discussions with the horse smart French. I love that I can talk about horses here with people that truly know about horses with good eyes. It’s like heaven! There’s so many neat things to say about Bernadette but you must enjoy her website and top facility in Saint-Tropez, France at http://domaine-equestre.com/. They have some lovely and talented horses for sale with great competition records as well.
So the auction began with a booming Elvis medley complete with the musicians and singers arriving in the middle of the arena via white convertible classic caddy! This excellent number was followed on by the opening auction of a one of a kind bracelet with braided tail hairs from Salinero, Totilas, Sunrise and Parzival artfully clipped together with 4 gold clamps engraved with each of the 4 horses names. The uniqueness of this bracelet was each tail piece was cut from the horses after their overwhelming win and record breaking ride by Edward at the EC in Windsor! Here’s a not so great picture but maybe you’ll get the idea:
Then the auction began with everything from 3 year olds just getting started all the way up to Grand Prix. One thing is somewhat positive with buying from auction is the horses will have had some bombproofing for dealing with crowds, noises and distractions in the arena! What fun! 🙂
One of the first horses in.
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One of the top selling horses. Such a long run the movie is in two parts.
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And sold for…
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All told it was a wonderful evening with a great party following the close of the auction. I picked up a few cigars at the shop outside the auction for Ex and they introduced me to a nice light cigar which I took a picture of so he see it, remember it and potentially try it later. DISCLAIMER: No this does not mean I promote smoking in any shape or form.
Many thanks to Dane for the invitation to this lovely evening! It was a great time and I’m so happy I had this experience. If I’d known about it only a week or two sooner I could have likely tried and potentially bid on some of the talents myself! What fun!