Thursday, April 22, 2010

'Incident' at OBS April sale?

(Updated 6:15 p.m.)

While the live feed of this auction was running in the background on my browser, very near the end of the sale at about 5:39 p.m., the auctioneer has mentioned "an incident" at the sales facility, the horse in the ring (Hip 1219 of 1,221) was escorted out, and the question was asked, "do you want us to evacuate?"

Signal has gone dark and the last words heard were, "please stand by ... just a moment."

I'll keep watching and update ASAP.

Update, 5:55 p.m.: Video signal returned a couple of minutes ago, but the sales ring appears devoid of people.

Update, 6 p.m.: Auction staff moving in and out of the ring; no announcements yet made. Nobody seems in all that much of a hurry, nor flustered. ... Now an announcement at 6:02 that the sale will resume in five minutes, but in the holding area, not the ring.

Update 6:06 p.m.: Announcement again that the sale will resume, "business as usual" in the back holding area in about five minutes. Wisecracked an announcer, "We have a number of firefighters here, they are eligible to bid ..."

Update 6:09 p.m.: Sale resuming with Hip 1219, horses in the back walking ring. Starting over on this Sarava filly, on whom the bidding was at $3,000 when the "incident" occurred. ... Wonder if anyone (Blood-Horse, I'm lookin' at you) will ever report what caused the stir?

Update 6:15 p.m.: Last Hip sells at "an eventful" final session of OBS April, according to the ring announcer. "But," he said, "everyone is safe and sound." ... Still wondering exactly what happened. ... Now through the OBS video feed I'm getting talk-news sound without picture; Jack Cafferty of CNN.

2 comments:

  1. "We have a number of firefighters here, they are eligible to bid ..."
    ___________

    Were there daughters of Blazing Sword + Xtra Heat in this sale? ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha ... should have been!

    Now I'm not sure whether he said "eligible" or "welcome." Funny either way. They seemed to take it all in stride.

    I don't know if there was enough money being burned up at this sale to set off a fire alarm or what. I don't believe any of the coverage at The Blood-Horse or Thoroughbred Times even mentions it. All they had to do (and *should* have done) is toss in one sentence to say, "Selling of the final three horses of the day was delayed by 30 minutes, and then moved out back to the walking ring, due to (fill in the blank.)"

    ReplyDelete

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