This article originally appeared in the Daily Racing Form in a slightly different form.

     If you own Thoroughbreds and don't operate your own farm, sooner or later you're going to need an auction sale agent--and when that time comes, you'll find no shortage of candidates for the job.
    In fact, even if you do operate your own farm, you may find it advisable to use an agent instead of doing the job yourself. When that time comes, you'll want to know the answers to three important questions:

          What should you expect an agent to do?
          How much should you expect to pay?
          Which agent should you use? 

    Before trying to answer those questions, let us pause and consider another important question: Should your horse be sold at public auction at all? Unless the horse is worth at least $1,500, you'll probably be better off trying to sell him through a classified ad in your local newspaper or even donating him in some way that will earn you an income-tax deduction, because between the time you enter a cheap horse in an auction and the time the final bill is paid, you may spend more than the horse brings in the sale.
     If you have that kind of horse and have no way of disposing of him except by sending him to a sale, your best bet probably will be just to look for the lowest-priced agent--it may be the farm where you horse is boarded--and go with him, because there's little or nothing anyone can do to increase the horse's price.
     (At this point, I have to pause to say that many of the competent agents these days are women, and the masculine pronoun is used here for convenience, referring to both male and female agents.)
     In that situation, you'll be looking for someone who will do nothing more than feed and water the horse, groom him, and lead him to the sale ring. There probably won't be any visitors to the barn to look at the horse, so you don't need to hire a sales person. You just want the horse disposed of at minimum cost.
     But with horses of higher value, your choice of an agent can have a significant effect on the sale price of your horse. And when you start checking around, you'll find the price difference between the most expensive and least expensive agents isn't much, so you'll probably be wise to rank performance ahead of price.
     At the same time, you cannot assume that the most expensive agent is the best. A few agents have reputations and fees that exceed their performance.
     Which brings us to the first question: What should you expect an agent to do?
     The first thing to understand in that regard is that an auction sale agent cannot guarantee to find you a buyer who will pay the price you want. He should do everything he can--within ethical, moral, and legal limits--to persuade people that they should pay a lot of money for your horse, but no reputable agent will promise to produce a buyer who'll pay your asking price.
   A  competent agent does things for you at each stage of the sale process: before the sale, during the sale, and after the sale.
     Perhaps surprisingly, a substantial number of these things are done before the sale. The very first thing he can do is advise you on choice of sales. Sales are not all the same, and your horse could bring a higher price in one sale than in another.
     After that he can assist you in devising and supervising a sale-preparation program for your horse. A horse's physical condition almost always affects his price, and the conditioning has to take place before the horse ships to the sale. Even if you're preparing your horse at your own farm, your agent should be able to assist you. It's his job to know what should be done to get a horse ready for a sale.
     There's considerable paper work involved in getting a horse sold at auction, and your agent can help you in many ways, from assisting you in completing the entry blank to helping track down missing documents. He can also help you arrange vanning, especially if he has other horses shipping to the sale from your area.
     Of major importance is the promotional work an agent does prior to the sale, and you'll find the work done by different agents in this regard ranges from a great deal to none at all.
    When you're doing your interviewing, find out specifically and in detail what each agent is going to do--and what it's going to cost (an agent with low basic rates may not be a bargain if he adds on a lot of promotional charges).
     The most common type of pre-sale promotion is mass-media advertising. However, if the advertising adds nothing to what can be found in the sale catalog, you'll probably be wasting your money. If something important has happened in your horse's pedigree since the catalog was printed, such advertising can help. If it hasn't, save your money.
     Direct-mail promotion or hand-delivery of promotional materials can be extremely effective, especially if the material provides favorable information not shown in the sale catalog. It doesn't have to be new information; just letting prospective buyers know that your mare ran fourth in a stakes race (the sale catalog won't show that), for example, can help her sale price.
     Letters to people who may have a special interest in your horse--such as the owner of your yearling's successful older sibling--can be particularly useful. (There's nothing to keep you from doing this kind of thing on your own, but you should co-ordinate with your agent to avoid duplicating efforts.)
     Now let's go on to the sale itself.
     Whatever else you may expect of an agent, nothing is more important than the basic nuts-and-bolts care of your horse. He has to be fed and watered and have his stall cleaned daily (and kept clean), but he also must be handled in such a way as to minimize the possibility of injury, and any illness or injury has to be dealt with in a way that keeps damage to a minimum.
     Having competent handlers is necessary, of course, but equipment also plays a part.  For example, any horse except a broodmare or a docile racehorse should have a full-sized metal screen as a supplementary stall door; not to have one is to invite injury.
     Two things, above all others, frustrate and anger prospective buyers. One is going to a sale barn and finding nobody there to show the horse; the other is being unable to find out important information about the horse, such as the training status of a racehorse or the breeding history of a broodmare. There's no excuse for any professional agent to fail on either count.
     It's basic, too, for the horse to be clean and well-groomed with his mane skillfully pulled or, if necessary, braided. He should be ready at an early enough hour so that morning visitors to the barn don't have to be shown a dirty horse or told to come back later when things are in order.
     For sales of 2-year-olds in training, it's extremely important that your agent have skills in bring your horse to his workout of peak form and, of course, uninjured.
     Those are all things you can check out for yourself by going to a sale and watching agents operate.
     In addition, your agent should provide appropriate displays, fliers, brochures, and the like to make available to prospective buyers information that may increase your horse's price. It's possible to overdo that kind of thing and provide so much information that the important things get buried, so the operative word here is "appropriate."
     Furthermore, the person who actually leads the horse to the sale ring should be fully briefed so he can answer any questions that may be asked by last-minute shoppers, and relevant information should be provided to the announcer to be read when the horse enters the ring. If lookers' questions are likely to be hard to answer, the agent himself should accompany the horse to the sale ring.
     If you're not going to attend the sale, you certainly will need an agent who will take care of your business properly and dependably. That could involve placing a reserve (a price below which you will not sell) with the auctioneer, arranging shipping back home if the horse doesn't sell, and generally taking care of problems that arise.
     You'd also like your agent to call you and inform you of the results of the sale, if that's your wish, and whether you attend the sale or not, your agent should be able to help you decide what price to expect and what reserve to set, if any.
     What you absolutely should not expect your agent to do is make extravagant claims for your horse when talking with prospective buyers. You want your agent to have credibility, and he won't have it if he deliberately misleads people. An agent with credibility can be of great value to you, because buyers learn which agents can be trusted and which can't. You should check on that, too, if you possibly can, before choosing an agent.
     Compared with all his responsibilities before and during the sale, there's little for your agent to do after the sale. You are contractually obligated to see that the horse is cared for until noon of the day following the sale or until he's picked up by his new owner. That's your agent's responsibility.
     After the sale, your agent will perform his last duty: he'll send you a bill. That bill should clearly explain all charges and should be accompanied by copies of invoices for any expenditures for which he is requesting reimbursement.
     Now, on to the second question: How much should you expect to pay?
     The charge made almost universally by professional agents is five percent of the sale price plus expenses, usually expressed as a fixed sum per day per horse ("day charges"). It's standard for an agent to require payment of a minimum commission, since he could hardly be expected to work for five percent no matter how little that is. Those day charges should be agreed upon in advance, not left open as reimbursement for whatever the agent chooses to spend.
     Can you negotiate for a better deal? You can certainly try, and you can almost always find an agent who'll undercut his competitors' prices. But in the end you're going to have to balance performance against price, just as you would if you were buying merchandise. Shoddy merchandise at a low price isn't likely to be a bargain.
     If you're boarding your horse at a commercial farm, that farm may take your horse to the sale and care for it just for day charges, with no commission. Again, you have to weigh performance against price, and you shouldn't let the farm people handle your horse at the sale unless you're satisfied they'll do the work that you require.
     One final word about charges. If your horse doesn't meet your reserve and leaves the ring unsold, you'll still have to pay commissions to both the sales company and your agent, unless you've negotiated a different arrangement. You probably won't be able to make any deals with the sales company to reduce their five-percent commission, even if you have a very expensive horse, but agents are a different story.
     One of the most common ways for agents to price-cut is to offer reduced commissions on horses that don't meet their owners' reserves. In other words, an agent may offer to work for nothing if the horse doesn't bring the price you
require.
     An agent works just as hard to sell a horse that doesn't reach its reserve as he does to sell one that does--indeed, he doesn't know which is which until the hammer falls--so such a concession in fees is significant, for it carries the possibility that the agent will go home with an empty pay envelope.
     Usually, there are only two reasons for an agent to make such a concession. One is that your horse is so good, so potentially valuable, that he would risk working for nothing to have a chance to earn a sizable commission. The other reason is that he needs the business and will do what he has to do to get horses in his barn. Either way, you can be sure that if you make such an arrangement with your agent, he'll have a strong incentive to recommend that you set your reserve low.
     Now that you know what agents can do and you have some understanding of their fees, you can go on to the third question: Which agent should you use?
     Performance and price are unquestionably most important, but there are a couple of other factors to consider. First, sale agents typically offer counseling to clients on an on-going basis, independent of sales. Before selecting an agent, you should determine which offer such assistance and what they charge for it, if anything. Second, the personal factor--can you have a comfortable relationship with him? You don't have to become close friends, but it certain helps to have an agent you get along well with, especially if you hope to have a long-term relationship.
     How do you locate these sale agents so you can start your interviews? The best method is to attend a sale where they have horses. That way you can meet the agents in person and at the same time compare their sale operations. If you can't do that, the next-best way is to ask the sales company with which you plan to sell to recommend several agents, then do your homework.
   But whatever you do, remember that sale agents are not identical and no horse "sells itself." If your horse has any virtues at all, a good agent can probably do something to increase his price--or at least not decrease it. Some agents are competent and some aren't. You'll be well-rewarded if you take the time and trouble to find out which are which.