Written by Rhett Wilkinson, staff reporter

The horse had a broken nose.

But Chelsea Bowen bought her.

“Thank you for taking her,” said the auctioneer, Gus Warr.

Another was blind.

“I’m not even sure if the guy (the eye) is in there,” Bowen assessed.

But Bowen bought that horse, too.

“Thank you for giving her a home,” Warr said.

The equines were two of 14 that Bowen flew from Pennsylvania to Millard County to purchase. She did so Friday at a Bureau of Land Management auction at the Delta Wild Horse and Burro Facility. Bowen is devoted to horses – her associate, Annie MacDermaid, said that Bowen, in her “passion” for horse adoption, “runs the northeast,” for the adoptions. Besides Pennsylvania, Massachusetts is among the specific states from the northeast U.S. with buyers from the Friday auction, Bowen said.

While saying that “everyone is split” on the BLM’s program of rounding up wild horses and auctioning them, Bowen said she will work with whatever mechanism is available for her to be able to obtain the horses.

“I need to take care of them,” said Bowen, who has 34 acres for horses. “The downtrodden ones work (their) way into your heart.”

“What are you going to name them?” MacDermaid asked Bowen.

“I like Durado,” Bowen said of one of the three she is getting for herself. She also said that one of the buyers from her claimed they will name their horse Barbra Streisand “since Barbra Streisand is a big ol’ horse.”

There was indeed appeal unique to the nearby area: Bowen, an owner of three “Cedar Mountain horses” going into Friday, was looking to buy more.

“There is definitely a market for these out east,” she told the Chronicle Progress.

Bowen and other buyers paid at least $125 for each horse. One is a mustang for a woman who grew up with one.

MacDermaid lives outside the county and state as well, as a resident of Arizona. She was making purchases for others as well Friday. (“I run the southwest,” she said of her role with horse adoption.)

“Congratulations; you are the owner of two new horses … and I got my baby, too,” she said to one purchaser in the southwestern U.S., one of many calls and texts that she and Bowen made immediately after buying horses. A couple of times, they hugged each other.

MacDermaid made a remark about the attendees being a “support group” after another attendee (not Bowen) made a purchase, which came after the purchases that sparked Warr’s expressions of gratitude and others from the two women.

“I like the support-group concept,” Warr, a Utah Wild Horse and Burro state lead, then said.

Then MacDermaid bought another one.

“That’s my guilty pleasure right there,” she then said.

Bowen personally attended the auction Friday because she wanted to select the ones she wants, instead of using standard selection through the BLM’s program for that, she said. At one point during the auction, she commented on a “gray” horse with “white socks.”

“It’s pretty,” she said.

In recent years, Bowen has found an interest in mustangs like never before despite having worked with horses her entire life.

“They’re smart; they’re athletic, they’re colorful,” Bowen had remarked.

The horse-adopter community “is very tight-knit” online, enabling Bowen and MacDermaid to make purchases for others, MacDermaid said. Internet adoption makes for free shipping, MacDermaid said.

Bowen identified the northeast region particularly for her as Virginia to Maine.

Bowen works with Janna Lasher for purchases since Lasher charges $2,000 less than other sellers do, Bowen said.

Another potential buyer said he would wait two months on buying a horse since that is when he can be separated from his mother.

Overall, 62 horses were sold, with 34 being adopted outright, according to BLM spokesperson Lisa Reid.