Welcome to the Troyer Auction, a semi-annual sale of all things ranch, a totally unique two days of live auctions and fantastic people watching. Picture the Discovery Channel’s Amish Mafia meets Auction Kings, thow in a ranch-like twist and you have the formula for this unique sale where ranchers, farmers and Amish from all across this region come to sell and bid on horses, wagons, and all things horse and ranch. Surely a prime-time show will feature this soon.
We head down almost every spring and fall to see what we can find among the stables and wheels. Sometimes we come home with a trailer full of horses and gear, other times we have an empty trailer but plenty of good stories to tell.
We’ve found a lot of our wagons at this auction over the years. A number of the wagons and horses are shipped out from Amish country and are used for transportation before the sale.
And then we’ve found a lot of our horses here. The sale has big horses, small horses, cart horses, riding horses, huge horses, mini horses, mules, donkeys and more. Again, with a large portion of the sellers being Amish, many of the horses for sale are used daily for riding or pulling carts and wagons.
Folks preform all kinds of crazy stunts to convince you that their horse is well trained. They stand on their horse’s back, they crack whips, they have children ride and drive them, they cover them with tarps or climb under their legs.
After riding and showing horses in the practice ring outside, sellers
bring the horses into the sale ring and let the auction begin. It’s one part sale and two parts show. Kids and adults ride the horses, they stop, turn, trot, lope. The horses get covered with tarps then walk over tarps. The more they can do, the higher the prices clmb.
Some horses go for a steal, other prices soar. Not knowing the outcome until the final second is all part of the fun. We ended up
coming home without any new additions to our herd this time, but we did see an old friend or two…
