We show for sale order around here. But where I grew up in Louisiana our sale was randomized and it got kind of confusing, lol. At our county we were each allowed to sale 1 unit, regardless of placing. A steer was the only thing that was one unit by itself. All others were half units. In my entire career, and still to this date I only remember 2 steers ever selling at our parish sale. All of our steers were headed to the State Fair and we could not continue showing the animal after it sold. So basically we each sold 2, it was based on your placing in your class, but the rule was everyone got to sell one before anybody sold their 2nd. It also got confusing because it wasnt uncommone for some kids to have 4 or 5 hogs showing at our fair, because we could sell 2 there and still potentially get 3 in the sale at State Fair of Louisiana. So there were a lot of kids that had 2 to sell at Parish and then 3 to take on to State Fair, and we could show all 5 at Parish, just only sell 2. So basically the way it went was the kid who showed champions sold their highest placing sale animal first, followed by the kid who had reserve selling thier highest placing, unless the same kid showed Grand and Res, then the kid led off the 2nd round of the sale. It was a very confusing way to do sale order but it worked and there were no complaints and they felt it was the fairest way since most of the high placing animals never sold at our Parish sale.
I understand the showing for sale order, especially when you only sale a certain percentage, that way the best animals in the judges opinion are the ones to sale. However, I also really support the idea of selling by class placing from class 1 and then going in order. After all, these jr sales are not typical auctions, they are "Premium" sales. And premiums are typically paid based on how you placed in your class, so I kind of feel the Premium Sale should kind of follow the same order. The way I kind of see it, your champions are ussually all in the same 2 or 3 classes, all the people seriously trying to win the show are spending the money on the calves to target that weight, what about the kid that knows he/she cant afford to compete with those people, so they use their money judiciously and buy the cheaper calf to target for the light weights or the very heavy weights, just so they can at least be more competivive in their class. Do they not deserve the chance at the sale just as much as the kids that spent a lot more money trying to win the whole thing? I think there are pros and cons to both situations, unfortunately there is no way to make a perfect system so I think you just have to roll with the system you have and be happy with it.
If you go and try to change it to a system that you personally like better, then someone else is not going to think that is fair and they will be coming right back trying to change it back in a few years.
