1968-Voice Of The Tennessee Walking Horse 1968 March Voice RS | Page 51

When springtime comes to Middle Tennessee and
the bluegrass covers the meadows and hillsides, when
the sun is bright and the skies are clear, when the
trees are in tender leaf and the flowers are peeking
tiny shoots through the surface of mother earth, ’tis
then that those who knew him begin to think of the
late Jimmy Joe Murray.
April saw his sales catalogue off the press, and
when May came along Jimmy Joe began to tell his
friends that the lot of horses he has for his Murray
Farm Sale near the shank of the month were the best
and finest he had ever offered the public. You knew
then that it wouldn’t be long until horses would begin
to be rolling in in vans and trucks and the barns
would begin to fill. You also knew that soon the big
canvas tent would go up in the garden just to the
north of the Murray ancestral home.
Visitors would trek to Lewisburg from as many as
twenty states, and when the sales began the cheery
chant of the auctioneer could be heard echoing across
the meadow to the north of the place where the sale
was held. There riders would be exercising horses
with a number on their forehead, and that meant that
they were soon to go under the hammer, maybe to
find a new home at some very distant point.
These sales were colorful events in the horse world.
They had huge crowds present and bidding. There
was an expectant air throughout the tent when the
auctioneer mounted the platform and Jimmy Joe
made "a few remarks,” usually a welcome and telling
about the bloodlines of the lot he was offering at
auction.
His helpers in the sawdust arena were w'aiting to
jump about and yell, "Yes, I’ve got it,” and when the
bidding was under way one could expect Jimmy Joe
to stop the sale to comment upon the blood lines of
some particular individual — he could trace 'em back
to ALLAN F-l and farther within the twinkling of an
eye, and he could dwell upon ancestors and make the
one at hand a most glamorous and desirable prospec­
tive purchase.
Jimmy Joe Murray originated the Tennessee Walking
Horse auction sales. He held his first one on May 27,
1938. Jimmy Joe was then known as a top man in
the Jersey cattle world. He was just coming into his
own in the Tennessee Walking Horse world. This sale,
held in the family garden as were all others, was a
March, 1968
venture into the unknown. The Tennessee Walking
Horse Breeders’ Association of America was only
three years old.
I don’t have the average for this first sale, but the
second sale on May 25, 1939 had 66 horses entered.
I was present at this sale, but didn’t get the average.
The third sale was on September 25, 1939 — he was
now branching off with a sale in the fall as well as
one in the spring, a practice he kept up until his
death one spring noon in 1947.
There were 94 horses sold in his fifth sale on May
29, 1941, at an average of $344.50 per head. In his
catalogue for this sale Jimmy Joe listed STROLLING
JIM, NELLIE GRAY, THE G MAN, WISE DECISION,
FOREVER YOURS, RED ACE, YOU’LL REMEMBER,
LADY WILSON, STROLLING MARY, BEST CHANCE,
MAN ABOUT TOWN, BESSIE KING, KNOX PHA-
GAN, CAROLINA MOON and others which had been
sold, and he gave the prices they had brought. This
was making history and was history making. Jimmy
Joe was quick to catch this and play it up. He was a
master salesman, as well as a master showman.
The seventh sale, in 1942, auctioned 225 horses and
went for two days. The average of this sale was
$316.01 — and Jimmy Joe wanted that ".01” added,
because they brought more than $316 per head!
Showman. The fall sale in 1942 brought $256.74. The
spring sale in 1943 saw an average of $330.62, and
this was topped by the 1943 fall sale that had an
average of $358.64.
Things jumped up for the spring sale in 1944 and
the average was $406.75, tops to that time. In the
fall of 1944, as was nearly always the case, there w'as
a lower average; however, it was $379.32, and that
wasn’t bad at all. In Jimmy Joe’s spring of 1944 cat­
alogue, he said he hoped to have THE TENNESSEE
WALKING HORSE ready in the fall. This magazine
was a brain child of "the old maestro.”
When 1945 rolled around and along came spring,
Jimmy Joe had his 11th sale which saw 285 head
sold for an average of $619.05, a new high — and
who else but Jimmy Joe could have done it?
In the fall of 1945 the sale had an average of $439.-
42, and at this time Emmett J. Lee, Jr., h ad joined
the staff of THE TENNESSEE WALKING HORSE,
he now being editor of this popular and widely read
(Continued on page 56)
51