At the time of printing there are currently 20 horses entered into Digital Downs second auction. Of the 20 only five have received any bids and there doesn't look to be near as much interest in any of the horses as their was with Texas Ed Scintilator during the first auction. Any active stable can enter horses into the auction as stated in the help file:
5b - Purchasing/Selling A Horse - Via Auction You can also purchase or sell any race horse via the "Auction Page". The "Auction" begins at the listed time with a horse being auctioned off every 5 minutes until every horse is done. The horses will be listed by age with the 2yo's being auctioned first. If a reserve bid is listed the first bid must be at least equal to the reserve. The highest bidder at the time of close wins the horse. Bids can be raised by any increment but the credits must be available in your account as they will be deducted at time of bid. If your bid is not successful or has been outbid by another party the full amount of your bid will be instantly credited back to your account. Horses cannot be entered into the auction if they are either listed for sale on the "Sales Page" or entered in a race. The fee to sell a horse in the auction is 1000 credits(non-refundable) paid at time of entry or 10% of the final sales price whichever is higher.
If there is interest in the horse then this affords the seller the possibility to save money via auction as opposed to the regular sales page which charges a flat 15% from the seller. The possibility to save comes into play when the horse is auctioned for 6667 credits or more. For example a horse sold for 7000 credits via auction would would give a return of 6000 credits, whereas on the public sales page would only return 5950. Not much of a difference, but at 100,000 credits the difference is 10,000 credits via auction compared to 15,000 via sales page.
Several stables are stumped by a few of the choices on the auction. Jeff from Stine Stables said, "It looks like quite a few are entering horses at very low prices.....looks like some should have just given them away with 1000 credits." Along the same lines James from Henderson's stable added in a forum post, "...well I will never understand why someone would use the auction to sell a horse for 500 and pay $1 to sell it"
On the opposite end of the spectrum the buzz is that Brassmonkey and ColtFly are overpriced even though the latter has put up some very interesting 5f workout numbers. Possibly other owners are wanting to see it in action a little more before making such an investment.
One is also urged to question the move of Tom Boy stable putting up a created horse that has never been trained with no reserve. If this is a new stable selling its initial freebies, I would certainly hope a more experienced stable takes it upon themselves to take this person under their wings and give them a little guidance with the site.
The auction is scheduled to start on May 5th at 10:00 am EST and should continue for a few hours throughout that day. Good luck to all of those involved.
