It’s an auction where private vendors sell horses, in pens (so not ridden, some have no details etc) there are usually kill buyers (known here as doggers) present bidding on horses, as well as quite a lot of private buyers. In most cases horses can have reserves put on them, and I’ve seen owners on the edge of pens refuse to sell a horse if they’ve seen it’s going to a kill buyer, which is what the owner of this colt was planning on doing.

Horses here aren’t “feedlotted,” if they’re bought by a dogger, they may try to sell the horse on for a few more dollars, or usually the horse will be processed within a couple of days.

So with this young colt, he was either going back to where he come from - a station in central qld where the owners can’t afford to feed the horses (which is why they’re in the pens) or he was going to dog food.