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Record falls as top steer takes center stage at Houston Rodeo

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Elderberry:
Houston Chronicle by  Maggie Gordon March 16, 2019

The bidding starts at $50,000 — nearly as much as the average household earns in a year in rural Scurry County, where 18-year-old Lillyan Digby lives with her family. Which is why, as she stands on stage at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo on Saturday morning with her steer Hank, Lillyan can’t help but think, “This isn’t real.”

Hank’s nervous. Cows aren’t built to traipse around a stage in front of hundreds of people waving yardstick bidding paddles. Not even prize-winning steers like Hank, who on Friday night was named the show’s grand champion among all 34 of the rodeo’s breed champions. And while Lillyan is determined to keep her composure behind pursed lips, by the time the bidding hits $300,000 — just a minute or so into the fast paced one-upping — Hank lets out a long, deep moo.

This elicits a few laughs from the crowd of a couple hundred of Houston’s most well-to-do, dressed in ensembles that make you realize cowboy boots really do pair well with Louis Vuitton. But the vast majority of the people seated in the sales pavilion are too pumped up to notice. In the front row, Alan Kent is battling his way to the top bid. He’s a mainstay at this auction — the businessman in a black cowboy hat who’s bought too many champions over the past four decades to even remember the total number. But a few rows to his right, Paul Somerville is determined to take the top bid.

They play chicken — along with a few others. There’s McCarthy Building Company, and Emily and Robert Clay up front. And further back in the stands, there’s the Champagne Cowgirls, a group of more than a dozen of Houston’s most high-profile female philanthropists, dressed in matching denim jackets. They’re fueled up on coffee (and maybe a few cocktails, one of their members, Hallie Vanderhider, says with a wink) and ready to raise the auction’s energy to the next level.

Somerville takes the lead at $400,000, then loses it before securing it again at a half-million dollars. But then there’s Kent with a $525,000 bid.

Hank stomps a foot. Snorts.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Record-falls-as-top-steer-takes-center-stage-at-13694253.php

austingirl:
Don't let AOC near him.

Hoodat:
That's a lotta bull.

Smokin Joe:

--- Quote from: Hoodat on March 17, 2019, 02:36:40 pm ---That's a lotta bull.

--- End quote ---
That's just it. It's a steer, not a bull. You can own it or clone it, but you ain't gonna breed it.

GrouchoTex:
I figured it would be Mattress Mack

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