Pros of auction: local thus no need to pay for shipping, and you can look at multiple animals at a time, and probably get a very low price.
Cons of auction (in this particular case): an awful lot of animals run through cheap auctions come away with significant respiratory diseases or strangles, even if htey were healthy when they *got* to the auction, thus you need to be ok with the possibility of nontrivial vet bills for auction horse and also potentially for existing horse. Also, temperament can be considerably, ah, "chemically misrepresented" at an auction (much much more commonly done at auctions than when buying horses from someone's back field), so if not being apt to do stupid things or try to kick your head off on occasion is important to you, an auction may not be the smartest place to shop. Hard to get a really RELIABLE vetting for things like early moonblindness at an auction, either.
JME,
Pat
Cons of auction (in this particular case): an awful lot of animals run through cheap auctions come away with significant respiratory diseases or strangles, even if htey were healthy when they *got* to the auction, thus you need to be ok with the possibility of nontrivial vet bills for auction horse and also potentially for existing horse. Also, temperament can be considerably, ah, "chemically misrepresented" at an auction (much much more commonly done at auctions than when buying horses from someone's back field), so if not being apt to do stupid things or try to kick your head off on occasion is important to you, an auction may not be the smartest place to shop. Hard to get a really RELIABLE vetting for things like early moonblindness at an auction, either.
JME,
Pat
