He’s honest as far as horse traders go…..

A few years ago the wife and I decided to go look at a mare that was being sold at the local horse sale. They had some good pictures of her on Facebook and dang she was pretty. She was running bred on top and cow bred on bottom, that makes the barrel racer side of the family happy and the ropers happy too. We have to buy horses that will do either event.

They didn't have any videos riding her though and we wanted to watch her being rode around our back. We got up there a couple hours before the sale started and got a buyers number and all the paperwork filled out to bid on the mare. Then we took off out back behind the sale barn to have a look.

There she was tied up with an old high back saddle on her. She looked like she had been rode uphill forty miles in August pulling a house. Now I'm talking she was gaunt, drawn down like a shriveled up worm on hot concrete. Her head was being held up by the lead rope tied to the fence. She was either drugged out of her mind or really, really tired. I guessed the latter because if I was going to drug a horse I'd at least have it full looking and not looking like it just crossed the Sahara desert.

It wasn't long and a young fella got on her. He had the jingle things on his big spurs and his pants tucked inside some high top boots. His hat looked like a cross between a sombrero and a giant fried tortilla. He put a fancy snaffle type thing in her mouth and climbed on. His bridle had big braided split reins with leather straps sewed on the ends. Those are the kind of reins you break colts with or ride a horse with that don't have much of a handle. Sure enough he kind of plow reined her around the walloped her on the butt with those big reins. She sort of humped up and kind of begin to trot off. He gigged her with his big spurs and she kicked out with both hind feet. Sort of a half buck and a half I don't like being poked with these spurs.

We didn't say anything to the tortilla hat wearing dude, we just watched him ride that mare around. It was evident she wasn't very broke and it seemed she had a tendency to pin her ears whenever she was asked to turn or lope around a little. She kind of acted like she had a bad attitude. I guess a city person would she had a poor disposition.

We went inside when it was almost her turn to go in the sale ring. As we were headed in we noticed a good friend of ours visiting with the tortilla hat wearing guy that was riding the mare. I kind of hung around and waited for them to get done talking. I asked my friend if he knew that guy and he said he did. I asked him if thought this guy was honest. He looked at the guy on the mare and then kind looked at me with a funny expression on his face. He said, “Well he's honest as far as horse traders go. He ain't gonna tell you no big lies, but ain't gonna volunteer anything extra either.”

We watched the mare sell and we never raised our hand to bid. We just figured we'd seen enough to know she would probably bucks us off if she was fed right and not rode into the ground. As we were leaving the tortilla wearing cowboy ambled over and said I was told you interested in my mare. How come you never bid?

I didn't figure I had anything to lose so I gave an honest answer. I told him I figure she bucks hard and don't want to be taught to rope or run barrels. He kind of grinned and said well, you might be right on that one!