Animals’ Angels recently attended the monthly horse sale, held the second Saturday of every month, in the small town of Kingsville, Missouri. The auction itself is a large, modern building with a restaurant, office, and an extensive pen area. A sign at the front of the property indicates that the auction holds multiple sales and has a regular cattle sale every Tuesday.
Investigators arrived at the Kingsville Horse Auction at 8:30 a.m. and couldn’t help but notice that the large parking lot was almost completely empty. There were only a handful of pickup trucks and stock trailers parked in front of the barn.
Inside, the tack sale was ongoing and a small audience was bidding on countless boxes full of halters, buckets, ropes, and saddles.
Investigators noted seven horses in the pen area. The pens had access to hay and the fans adjacent to the holding area were running, which kept the temperature down. There were also automatic waterers inside the pen area, but unfortunately, they were completely covered with debris and hay and it was impossible to tell if they were in working condition. None of the horses were observed drinking.
While two horses had slightly overgrown hooves, all the horses appeared to be in good condition otherwise. A veterinarian was present, drawing blood for Coggins Testing from each animal.
In talking to the veterinarian, our investigators were advised that the horse sale had been quite small for a long time and that there just “weren’t that much horses around” anymore.
The handling observed was calm, with all horses being lead into the sale area individually. No hitting was observed. Investigators also noted that there was no kill buyer presence observed at this sale.