Sales


COVID-19 Pandemic Forces Shift Of Ruidoso Sales To Oklahoma
The 2020 Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale, New Mexico-Bred Yearling Sale and the Foal-in-Utero Sale will be held August 27-29 at the Lazy E Arena located just north of Oklahoma City.

© Lazy E Arena
COVID-19 Pandemic Forces Shift Of Ruidoso Sales To Oklahoma

By BEN HUDSON, TRACK Magazine Owner/Editor

RUIDOSO DOWNS, NM—JULY 9, 2020—After weighing several factors relating to sales scheduled for this August and September at Ruidoso Downs, it has been decided to move the 2020 Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale, the New Mexico-Bred Yearling Sale and the Foal-in-Utero Sale to the Lazy E Arena located just north of Oklahoma City.

Lowell Neumayer, long-time general manager of the All American Horse Sale Co., announced today that the two long-standing Ruidoso sales . . . for this year only . . . will be combined and held at the Lazy E Arena on Thursday August 27, Friday August 28 and Saturday August 29.

Those dates follow the All American Futurity and All American Derby trials held the previous weekend (August 21-23) at Ruidoso Downs.

Neumayer said the Thursday session will feature some 200 New Mexico-bred yearlings.

The Friday and Saturday’s sessions will feature the 449 "open" Quarter Horse yearlings that had been consigned to the Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale normally held at Ruidoso Downs on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday immediately preceding Labor Day. Also selling during the Friday and Saturday sessions will be 20 foals-in-utero and a portion of the R.D. Hubbard Complete Dispersal.

Neumayer also said that trainers based at Ruidoso Downs needed time to get to Oklahoma to look at the sale horses with potential buyers and that these dates provide that time. "We are very grateful to Gary and Micah McKinney (whose Reliance Ranches own Lazy E) and Dan Wall (general manager of Lazy E) and the Ruidoso Downs owners and management for their assistance in helping us arrive at this solution.

"We won’t have the magic of Ruidoso this year, but the Lazy E Arena is a nice air-conditioned facility that hosts big events constantly and will accommodate our special needs as requested. We will be back in Ruidoso in 2021."

The Lazy E Arena, which was built in 1984 and has hosted many major horse events, has a seating capacity of more than 8,000.

This week, the arena is hosting the National Little Britches Rodeo finals and on July 27-28 it is hosting the National High School Rodeo finals.

The Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale, still known to many by its original name of All American Yearling Sale, has been a key part of the big week at Ruidoso Downs leading up to Labor Day since the sale’s inception in 1962.

For several years, the New Mexico-Bred Yearling Sale had been held at Ruidoso Downs on the Friday and Saturday evenings after the All American Futurity trials. Since the opening of the Ruidoso Downs Sales Pavilion in 1994, both of the sales have been held at that facility just east of the track.

With more than 700 head in the combined Ruidoso sales this year, it will be one of the company’s biggest sales ever. Last year’s Ruidoso Select Yearling Sale grossed $17 million with an average of nearly $50,000. The New Mexico-bred Quarter Horse yearling grossed $2.9 million with an average of more than $19,000. And the 20 embryos grossed nearly $400,000 for an average of nearly $20,000. That’s $20 million gross sales for the company, and a lot of money being redistributed in the business. That was back when oil and cattle were strong and so was the stock market. And before Covid-19.

The sales will be back at Ruidoso in 2021. And maybe things will be different everywhere.