On Father's Day weekend Scott Heny thought of his beloved father Richard, who died a decade ago.

He also thought about his role as a father and the third generation that will soon be running what has become the largest select gaited horse sale in the U.S. However, there wasn't a lot of time to reminisce; there was a live auction to run for hundreds of people in attendance and by phone.

Saturday at the Park County Fairgrounds, the 48th annual event brought in more than three quarters of a million dollars on the sale of 47 horses. The highest amount paid was $50,000 for a 6-year-old registered fox trotter named Calcutta's Devine Intervention raised by W2 Horse Farms in Alabama. It's a breed the Heny family has been chasing since 1968, after the patriarch learned the U.S. Forest Service had purchased some Missouri Fox Trotters for service. After much discussion, Richard bought five mares and a stud.

Soon they found other fox trotter enthusiasts in the region and they started the Big Horn Basin Missouri Fox Trotter Club. Prior to his death, Richard wrote about the pride he took in the organization and how the auction first started.

"At one time we had 58 members and 31 average attendance at our monthly meetings. We had members from four counties, all in the Big Horn Basin, [including] Park, Big Horn, Washakie and Hot Springs counties. The club helped the [Forest Service] on mountain trails, and to help build horse corrals at different trailheads," he said. 

About a decade later, in 1978, club members decided to have a sale along with their annual show. It soon evolved into a large auction, often selling as many as 70 horses to a crowd from across the nation. The club disbanded in 2014 — due to a drop in equine interest and the rise of all-terrain vehicles — but the successful sale continues.

During his 25th anniversary leading the event, Scott was seated at the center of the auctioneer table wearing a straw, wide brimmed hat, shades and a serious look on his face. There are a lot of moving parts to a live auction, but, after all the years working with his father and running the auction, the sale played out without a hitch.

The weather was gorgeous this year and the excitement was high when the horse tack auction kicked off at noon. Then, after an inspiring rendition of the national anthem by Wrigley Hitz and Sydney Betters, the first horse was introduced and the price was soon heading past $10,000. It's an event that even non-horse owners can enjoy; filled with unthinkably handsome horses and mules, broad smiles and that uniquely Wyoming western flair. Live auctions are becoming rare with most moving exclusively to the internet.

It wasn't long after the auction when Scott started thinking about the sale's next chapter. After leading the auction through its 50th anniversary sale, Scott will hand the reins to one of Powell's most storied events to his son, Cory. It will be the third generation of Henys to lead the event, scheduled for Fathers' Day weekend each year.

The only question remaining: Who will replace Cory in another quarter-century?