While others their age may be mowing lawns for $10 an hour, nine-year-old Abby Ellrott and her 13-year-old brother Riley have just helped their family make more than $120,000 in one afternoon.
On their cattle station near Morinish, central Queensland, the Ellrott children have been riding since they could walk.
Their family breeds Australian stockhorses, both to work their cattle at home and to sell at events like the 2022 Dalby Australian Stock Horse Sale, the largest of its kind in the country.
Their horses, Bighouse Sugar Rush and Bighouse Norbit, were two of 231 horses sold over the three-day auction, which grossed more than $5.3 million, the highest grossing sale in the 48 years it has been running.
Sad to see him go
By the time Riley Ellrott and his horse Norbit stepped out from the auctioneer's arena, both horse and rider were covered in sweat.
Riley said riding with the attention of hundreds of onlookers focused solely on horse and rider was "a big adrenaline rush".
Riding at stockhorse sales since he was nine, Riley said he understood the process of working horses with the aim of selling them.
But he said the $57,500 his family just made on Norbit was bittersweet.
"I'll miss him. He's one of my favourites," Riley said.
Prices going up and up
The worth of the Australian stockhorse, which is the breed put on the global stage by bush poet Banjo Paterson's The Man from Snowy River, has seen a dramatic price-rise in recent years.
Ray White Rural owner Dalby David Felsch, who hosted the sale, attributed it to the increasing cost of cattle worked by the stockhorses and a jump in competition prize money.
"It leads people into breeding better horses and paying more for them," Mr Felsch said.
Children helping to sell horses
It is not unusual for children to ride adults' horses at stockhorse sales, which is usually done to demonstrate the quiet and safe nature of the animal.
Among Australia's most respected and experienced riders was Felicity Wells, an 11-year-old from Hannaford in Queensland's Western Downs region.
Unlike Riley, Felicity was relatively new to the horse she helped sell at the sale.
"I'd only ridden him [Shield Tyson] six times before this," she said.
"He's a pretty strong horse.
"The first time I got on him, I thought, 'Oh, wow. That's a bit different to what I'm used to'."
She was riding the six-year-old gelding to sell it for its owner, a family friend, at the price of $26,500.
Felicity said her secret to success was staying calm.
"I just didn't let myself be nervous. I just went in there and had fun," she said.
The average price of the sale, $22,974, was the highest seen at Dalby.
The highest bid was $100,000 for a stallion fittingly called Royalle Double Your Money, sold by Ms Woodhall and Mr Simpson from St George.
Earlier this year, a performance horse sale in Tamworth grossed more than $17 million across five days of selling, making it the most valuable event in the auction's 15-year history.
Mr Felsch said that if you buy an expensive horse, you can sell an expensive horse.
"In buying a horse here, breeding from it, giving it a foundation and having it come back through the sale eventually, there's money in that as well," he said.
