Gordyville USA

Last week I went to The Mid-American draft horse sale in Gifford Illinois (aka Gordyville).  My friend Pat called and asked me if I wanted to attend with him.  Upon learning more, I found out that this sale is pretty much the best of the best in Percherons and Belgians.  I was excited to go and see what the best horses look like.  I pulled some strings, got work off, and went up with my friend Pat.

                Pat and I left Wednesday morning at around 9AM.  It was a 12 hour drive to get there.  Much of this was  new terrain for me to cover.  We headed  east through Texarkana and then on up to Little Rock Arkansas.  From there we continued up into Missouri and then into Illinois.  The highlight of the drive up was crossing the mighty Mississippi river.  I have never seen it before, and it truly is marvelous.  I had no idea that it was as wide as it is.  It was awesome to see.

I absolutely love road trips.  There’s something awesome about seeing this great land with your own eyes.  Cruise control set 5 over the limit, sunflower seeds, and Dr. pepper make for good driving.  The hours passed quickly and eventually we arrived at the hotel, and hit the sack.  Sleep came easy after spending the entire day on the road.

The next day we got prepared for the day at the sale.  The temps were in the teens outside.  The sun was out, but I had forgotten what an icy wind really felt like.  Texas sure has spoiled me.

The sale was in a giant indoor building.  The layout consisted of stalls up and down both sides of the building.  The center portion was divided in half.  The front half was arranged with bleachers and this is where the auction would take place.  The second half was the hitching area.  This is where horses were hitched to wagons either single or as a team so that potential bidders could see them work.  There was also a second building that had some vendors and shops.

I was blown away with this experience.  Pat and I began looking at the horses in the stalls, and looking in our sale guide to see the details on each horse.  Pat is amazing at knowing bloodlines.  Walking around with him was a very educational thing for me.  Pat knew which sires were good, and what they were good for.  He also knew which mares were good.  It was awesome to hear him talk about all this stuff.  It was completely new to me, so it was like drinking from a fire hose at first.  J

When I saw my first Belgian worked in the hitching area, I was floored.  This was the first time I had ever seen the high stepping action that the high dollar horses do.  It was so cool looking.  Basically, the front hooves, come all the way up to their shoulders when they trot if the horse does it right.  VERY PRETTY!  Both Percherons and Belgians are desired to do this.

In order to make this somewhat shorter, I’m going to give some bullets and put my thoughts on it.  I could probably write a novel with how much I observed and learned.

·         The Amish:         This was the first time I’ve ever seen the Amish people.  This sale was about 90% Amish, so it was definitely out of the norm for me.  If I had to stereotype, I would say that they are a short, healthy group.  It didn’t look like many of the men were even 6 foot tall.  What they lacked in height, they made up for in other area’s though.  I didn’t see a single overweight Amish person.  They were all very fit, and very healthy.  I would also have to say that these people are masters of horsemanship.  Watching them work them was awesome.  They make it look easy.  The conversations I had with a few of them were very pleasant.  I really enjoyed being exposed to them for the first time and seeing what wonderful people they are.

·         The horses:        It was amazing to see so many top notch horses in one place.  All of these horses were amazing.  The ones with the good leg action, size, and bloodlines went for a lot of money.  (I saw a Percheron gelding go for 32K, and a Belgian mare go for 16.5K)  It was interesting to see what traits were desirable and which were not.  To my surprise, there were many there that were quite affordable.  Some of the mares (which were better looking that most I’ve ever seen) went for a thousand dollars.  That floored me.  Most draft rescues I have seen, want 1500 or so for their horses, and then you might get a horse who is overcoming some health issue, with no papers, and only 30 days training.  These horses at the sale were all extremely well trained, and had good papers to boot.  I guess a person might get warm fuzzies from knowing they rescued a horse from somewhere, but I get warm fuzzies knowing I have a top notch mare that is trained and papered.

 

·         America’s farmland:       It was incredible to see the land in Illinois.  Pat explained that all the farmland I saw was usually filled with corn in the normal season.  The land stretched for miles and miles, and was dotted with farmhouses, and silo’s for storage.  It was quite a sight.  Pat also taught me about the history of farming in this region, and explained many of the outbuilding on each farm to me.  It was very cool!

·         A friends horse:               My wonderful friend Pam had a horse that she bred selling at the sale.  Pam was at the sale and I got to meet her for the first time ever.  What a wonderful friend I found thanks to my yahoo horse group.  This horse, Cassie, was 3-4  years old, and Pam sold her at 6 months old.  The current owner had her trained amazing, and was selling her.  I got to watch her pull a cart, and wow was she good.  She had really good leg action, wonderful conformation, and a cute little white spot on her rear end.  Pam was beaming with pride.  It really says something about your breeding program when you have a horse that gets sold at Gordyville.  This is not the kind of sale that average, non-papered horses go to.  Cassie was superb and looked wonderful at the sale.  Congrats Pam on helping to bring a wonderful mare into this world.

·         Show me the money:    One amazing thing I noticed, is the gap in pricing between Percherons and Belgians.  Just looking at Geldings.  The average price for a Percheron gelding at this sale was ~7000.  Contrast that to a Belgian gelding that averaged at ~5000.  Almost all the Percherons were pure black.  I kind of got the feeling that if you want to be into draft horses for the money, Percherons is where the money is.  LOL.

The sale was simply amazing and I would love to make it a habit to go there every year.  It’s a lot of fun to see beautiful horses and hang out with wonderful horse owners.  This trip was awesome and taught me a whole lot of stuff I didn’t know.  Thanks for asking me to go Pat!  I could not have had a better time with a better friend.  Thank you so much!

I took some video clips at the sale.  Sorry, no sound.  Click the link to see the video.

A short clip of Cassie hitched to a cart
A long clip of Cassie hitched to a cart
A clip of Cassie being sold at the auction