Rodney and Terry Kankey
In Town: Rodney is the owner/auctioneer for Arkansas Equine Sales. Together he and Terry run three horse auctions a month. Terry said, “We rent the barns, we furnish the horses, we take outside horses from people, we sell the tack and we sell horses at auction.” The Kankeys run two auctions in Arkansas, at Glenwood, Ark., then Ratcliff, Ark. Mountain Grove, Mo., is the location for the third auction, held on the second Thursday in each month. This particular sale has been in Rodney’s family for years. “I had an uncle, Gaylen Perryman, that ran it. He died about 10 months ago. He started running it probably 25 or 26 years ago,” Rodney said. Terry added, “We also do a lot of outside sales for other people, if somebody calls us and needs an auctioneer.” Also, Terry owns Terry’s Tack in Viola, Ark.
In the Country: The Kankeys’ have been running around 225 head of horses, all for sale. Their family farm totals 250 acres of land in Viola, Ark. “We use some of our family’s land too,” Rodney said, adding, “Most of our horses are run on as few acres as possible, because they need to be hand fed and handled.” They also have a few family horses, but like Terry says, a horse trader is a horse trader, and anything’s for sale. Terry and Rodney also train horses. They offer two days’ worth of riding lessons for the owner before the horse is taken home. The Kankeys want to make sure that the owner doesn’t encounter any problems.
Where is the horse market these days?
Rodney believes the horse market is in an “adjustment phase.” Rodney said, “The horse market has been higher than ever in history. Beginning in 1992, the market did nothing but climb. The horse market is cyclical, like everything else. Now it’s adjusting.”
How do you balance everything?
“It’s very hard. We’ve started using a little bit of outside labor and we’re probably going to have to do more. We’ve been looking seriously at hiring someone full time and furnishing them a house,” Rodney said.
By Jack & Pam Fortner
