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| Debra Hurst-Walters, Bill Carrington, and Marsha Shepard. |
The Circle J Futurity Auction was held on Saturday evening, January 14. This annual auction raises the prize money and operating funds for the Circle J Futurity held in conjunction with the Circle J Regional Morgan Horse Show each July. Stallion services purchased at this year's auction will be for yearlings showing in 2014. Although the Denver Broncos football team had a playoff game auction night, everyone showed up to bid and party!
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| Denise Wilkins and the Maretta Kennedy bronze. |
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| Checking out the Broncos and Patriots game at the start of the auction. |
After a Circle J General Membership meeting, a reception and a scrumptious prime rib dinner, Bill Carrington, aided by spotter Martin Cockriel, started off the bidding with some of the general auction items. Top winners included Sammi Hazen topping the bidding on a Marsha De Arriaga day coat at $1,150 and Monty Kugeler winning the bid at $1,200 on the coaching and dinner event offered by Erik and Mary Jensen of Thistle Hill Farm. Erik and Mary were the winning bidders on Debra Hurst Walters's Park City, Utah, vacation home at $1,100. Other items included a wine basket from David and Cindy Vogels of Andover Farm, a Maretta Kennedy bronze, RDL Chuckwagon catered BBQ dinner, photographs from Howie Schatzburg and Casey McBride, as well as full page ads in
The Morgan Horse magazine and
Saddle Horse Report. Bill Carrington got the best of Debra Hurst-Walters when he started to auction riding lessons from The River's Edge riding instructor Kate Vieyra. Deb commented that she really needed the riding lessons, so Bill, without batting an eye, turned to her and said SOLD to Deb for $300 without Deb ever making a bid! Deb, in turn, attempted to donate the riding lessons to Winnie Hale who had planned to bid on them. Winnie informed Deb that she didn't "need" riding lessons the way Deb needed them!
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| Denise Wilkins, John Aranda, and Debbie Trujillo. |
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| Marsha Shepard and Winnie Hale. |
Next Bill moved on to the stallion services themselves. Bill and Martin worked the crowd well and bidding on many of the stallions was lively and competitive. Mizrahi topped the sale at $3,500 with the winning bid going to Debra Hurst-Walters followed closely by Dragonsmeade Icon at $3,200 won by Ridgewood Farm. Other top stallions included Dragonsmeade Axios, Town Assets, SpiceOLife Present Tense, The Noblest, TRE Master Of Disguise, and Mastroianni. Mare slots were won by Fire Mountain Morgans and Margaret Thompson. Mare slots allow for auction get status to be based on the dam, rather than the stallion.
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| Erik and Mary Jensen. |
Complete details on all the stallions and their winning bids are available at
www.circlejfuturity.com. A total of $39,150 was raised by the auction. Only the winning bidder has a stallion service to produce an auction get yearling, but other get of the stallion are eligible to compete as non-auction get in a year that the stallion is eligible. This year's yearlings will show on Saturday, July 7 in Denver. Judges are Kathleen and Lynn Peeples and Harold Angell (Futurity judge only).
The Circle J Futurity would like to thank all the stallion owners, donors and bidders for helping make the Futurity possible. Their support of the Futurity is much appreciated. Please contact Julie Ouska,
jouska@att.net or (970) 396-1177 if you have any questions or to have your stallion included next year. For 2013, the Circle J Futurity auction will be held on Saturday, January 19.