Record-setting bids cast at wild horse adoption event

Staff Reports

A total of almost $30,000 was paid in the most successful saddle-trained horse adoption event hosted by Bureau of Land Management, the Nevada Department of Agriculture & the Nevada Department of Corrections on Saturday at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City.

The 17 wild horses offered for adoption were from the group of horses gathered from the Calico Complex of BLM-administered public lands in northern Nevada in January.

The horses were saddle-trained for four months by inmate-trainers in the Nevada Department of Corrections program, and were then offered in the competitive bid adoption.

Successful bidders from a crowd of more than 200 people paid a total of $29,900 for the animals.

All the horses were adopted after starting bids of $150. The event's top bid of $8,500, the highest ever bid in the 10-year-old program in Carson City, went for a 2-year-old strawberry roan gelding named Quick. Eleven of the horses sold for at least $1,000 each.

The successful bidders officially adopted their new horses and must show diligent care of each animal for a year before they can apply to the BLM to receive a title of ownership.

Since 1973, the BLM has placed more than 220,000 horses and burros into private ownership through the adoption program.

The next saddle-trained horse adoption competitive auction event is Feb. 12, 2011, at the Northern Nevada Correctional Center in Carson City.

Information, www.blm.gov/nv