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Cottonwood Springs Ranch To Disperse

Cottonwood Springs Ranch, one of the performance horse industry’s leading breeders, is holding a complete dispersal sale of its horses, equipment, tack, cattle, vehicles, trailers and real estate on Sept. 22.

The sale will be held at 12646 Indian Trails Road, Marietta, Okla., just one mile off Interstate 35 at Marietta exit 15, Highway 32. Equipment will be auctioned at 10 a.m., lunch follows at noon and the horse auction begins at 1 p.m. with tack and real estate immediately following. There will be plenty of parking on-site with room for trailers.

On the day before the sale, on Friday, Sept. 21, the public is invited to a preview that begins at 5 p.m. at the Cottonwood Springs Ranch’s indoor arena in Marietta. Refreshments and appetizers will be provided. The preview features 2-year-olds trained by Craig Schmersal Reining Horses and Jerry Fowler (formerly of Bob Loomis Ranch). According to Schmersal, “These are some of best bred and most talented horses I have ridden.” Yearlings will be available on video as well as worked in the round pen the day of the preview.

Visit the Cottonwood Springs Ranch website for more information and to see full details about the horses in the sale.

Cottonwood Springs Ranch has assembled a remarkable breeding program with offspring from mares having earned or produced more than $2.5 million. Sale highlights include Savannah Hickory, producer of National Reined Cow Horse Association Snaffle Bit Futurity Champion Reymanator and whose offspring have topped the last two NRCHA Snaffle Bit Futurity auctions with record $125,000 sales. There will be a full brother and full sister to Reymanator included in the sale. A band of some of the best Shining Spark broodmares will be sold, including Shiney Lil Miss (LTE: $89,000) and her full sister Shining Smarty, Shiney O Lady (LTE: $25,649), Sparking Train (LTE: $116,952) and Shiney Lena Sue (full sister to earners of $363,624, including Shiners Lena Doc, A Shiner Named Sioux and Shiney Sushi).

 

The sale includes more than 30 high-performance weanlings out of such mares as Poosmal (OE: $780,000+), Sonita Lena Chic (LTE: $152,757, highest-earning Smart Chic Olena mare) and Stressin (OE: $126,527, full sister to Kwackin with OE: $553,836).

Represented in the sale are offspring of some of the best stallions in the reining, cutting and reined cow horse industries. They include sons and daughters of Shining Spark, Topsail Whiz, Dual Rey, One Time Pepto, CD Lights, Smooth As A Cat, Colonels Smoking Gun, CD Olena, High Brow CD, Smart Chic Olena, Custom Chrome, Einsteins Revolution, Boomshernic, Boomernic and Magnum Chic Dream.

“We feel like we are selling the best and most exciting crop of weanlings we’ve ever produced. It will be fun to keep our eyes on these guys and see them winning,” said Floyd Miller, owner of Cottonwood Springs Ranch.

“It was an enormously difficult decision to leave the industry and the horses we love, but our daughter was accepted to a remarkable prep school in La Jolla, Calif. We looked at a bunch of ways to keep the ranch and give our child the support she needs and realized we’d end up shorting one or the other. We didn’t want all the hard work and money we’ve put into developing such a great program at risk. So, we had to make one of those tough life choices we all have to make from time to time. Hopefully our horses will go to people who will appreciate what we’ve put into them and give them the best opportunities possible.”

In addition to more than 80 head of horses, the sale will include top-of-the-line trucks, trailers, farm/ranch equipment (Volvo backhoe, Bobcat skid steers/track hoe, ATVs, Kubota tractors and attachments, among others). Also selling is a small herd of elite purebred Black Angus cows, a bull and two half-Angus, half-Wagyuu heifers. There are also four Hanoverian dressage horses, along with a very broke Smart Chic Olena ranch or kids horse that, in Miller’s words, “my 78-year-old mother-in-law took her first horseback ride on.” The sale will also feature horses from Schmersal Reining Horses. Click the dispersal button on the Cottonwood Springs Ranch website, www.cottonwoodsprings.biz, for complete details and descriptions (live 7/9/2012).

Also included in the auction is the Cottonwood Springs Ranch in Marietta, which is in “ready to train” condition with 100 acres of fenced pastures with automatic waterers, three stock tanks, a 32-stall barn with an oversized office with bath, lab and stocks, automatic horse walker, lighted covered arena, covered hay/equipment storage, two steel storage buildings, newly remolded trainer duplex, and a nice three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom main residence.

“I’m hoping the sale will not only be a success, but a lot of fun too,” Miller said. “I’m excited to see where our horses end up going and what they accomplish. Don Green will be our auctioneer, we will have a repository of X-rays on all the 1- and 2-year-olds with Dr. Khris Crowe here to do pre-purchase exams for anyone that wants to arrange for them (or they can use any vet they choose if arrangements are made in advance). Frank Constantini will be here from Markel Insurance to provide on-site insurance, and shipping can be arranged through the Solum Brothers. In addition to the horses, equipment, tack and our ranch, we are also auctioning off our 1928 International wood-paneled truck.”