The dirt, the deal, and the truth: inside the Colorado Horse Sale

This post is brought to you by Colorado Horse Sale, one of our favorite partners in the western industry. If you’ve never heard of them, buckle up. This is a business built the right way.

Every industry has its version of the sale barn handshake. The promise that sounds good in the moment and falls apart the second the horse gets home. Charlotte Voldt has built her entire business on refusing to be that.

Charlotte owns Leyden Livestock Marketing and the Colorado Horse Sale, one business under one roof, run out of Carr, Colorado, just south of Cheyenne. Six times a year she hosts live auctions across the state, moving right around two thousand horses annually. Ranch horses, trail horses, family mounts, a handful of rope and performance prospects, and more ponies than she can keep track of. She’s three full years into it. She started right as the market caught fire after COVID, and instead of riding that wave and coasting, she built something that keeps growing, sale after sale.

Ask her why, and she doesn’t talk about marketing funnels or growth hacks. She talks about people.

“I feel like that’s been the hugest part of building this business,” Charlotte said, “realizing how much we rely on our community and regular customers who really just all become such good friends too.”

A seat at the table for everybody

Charlotte is running a young business, owned and operated by young people, in an industry that doesn’t always make room for that. So she made the room herself.

“There’s a seat for everybody at the table in this horse sale business,” she said. That’s not a slogan on a flyer. It shows up in what she’s built around the sale itself: a Woman of the West sale, a kid sale with sessions built for young riders getting their first taste of the auction ring.

“We’re really here to support each other,” Charlotte said. “Nobody’s out to get each other here.”

That mindset is exactly why so many sellers who would normally just sell private treaty end up consigning with Colorado Horse Sale instead. They’re not there because it’s the only option. They’re there because of who they get to stand next to in the ring.

Honesty is the strategy, not the exception

Here’s where Charlotte separates herself from a lot of the industry. She’s not chasing the flashiest horse or the biggest name in the catalog. She’s chasing accurate.

“Vetted and represented to the best of the seller’s ability, that’s the ultimate recipe for a high selling horse,” Charlotte said. She’s watched it happen sale after sale. The horses that bring real money aren’t the ones dressed up to look like something they’re not. They’re the ones with an honest video, a straight answer, and a seller willing to say exactly what the horse is and isn’t.

She told the story of a consignor at a recent sale who had an older horse that needed some maintenance. Instead of glossing over it, the woman representing him said it plainly: this is a perfect first horse for a family. That’s all. The day after the sale, Charlotte was already getting messages from the family who bought him, over the moon about bringing him home.

“That’s literally why we do it,” Charlotte said.

All Horses are vetted on site at the sales. here are always 10-20 horses with radiographs on file for buyers to feel extra confident in.

That same trust shows up online, too. Charlotte has watched consignors post their own horses to Facebook and pick up bids from total strangers, simply because a friend of a friend vouched for them. I know so-and-so, I trust what they’re bringing, check them out. That’s the power of word of mouth, and in this business, it goes further than most sellers realize.

When it got tested, she leaned in

Every business gets tested in public eventually. Charlotte’s came in the form of an anonymous post on a Facebook group, somebody clearly trying to stir up trouble. Instead of staying quiet or letting her team handle it behind closed doors, Charlotte showed up herself.

“I’ll be a hundred percent honest with you about how we operate,” she said, describing the moment. She posted her own phone number in the comments. Call me, she told anyone with a complaint, and let’s fix it. What followed wasn’t damage control. It was a flood of her own customers showing up to say how good their experience had actually been.

“All of our customers, I think, would be like, yeah, Charlotte’s pretty open book,” she said. “You want to know what’s really going on here? Here’s what’s really going on.”

That’s not a tagline. That’s a woman who built a business she’s not afraid to explain to a stranger.

The people who show up to her sales feel it too. One consignor put it simply: what they love most about Colorado Horse Sale is Charlotte’s team’s dedication to transparency in every horse they sell, for buyers and consignors alike. Another said it even plainer: here, you’re not just known as a consignor. You’re known as a friend.

Catch the last two of 2026

Colorado Horse Sale has two live sales left this year, and both carry that same DNA of community and straight talk.

August 22nd in Eaton, Colorado brings the Back to School Kids Horse Special Session, built for the next generation of horsemen and women stepping into the ring.

October 10th in Montrose, Colorado closes out the year with the Tried and True Special Session on the Western Slope.

If you’ve been looking for a sale where the people behind the gavel actually mean what they say, these are the two dates to circle. Whether you’re buying, consigning, or just want to stand around and watch good horses find good homes, Charlotte and her team have built something worth being part of.

Learn more and register at coloradohorsesale.com

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