Pony Penning 2010 – Day 3

Posted at August 4, 2010 // Chincoteague

to see all of the 2010 Pony Swim photos visit www.greenhorsestudios.com

Wednesday, July 28th was the day of the 85th Annual Chincoteague Pony Swim! This was the third year I’ve seen the swim, and let me tell you it is still amazing each time I see it.

I started the day by heading over to the Pony Centre to feed Minnow, then my mom and I with a friend from the pony centre headed over to the Pony Shuttle stop by our hotel. The Pony Shuttle runs people to Memorial Park – where they encourage people to watch the swim from. But…you can’t see anything from memorial park – except dots. So we took the bus to memorial park and then proceeded to walk to Pony Swim Lane. Pony Swim Lane is where the ponies come ashore after the swim. If you want a really good spot you have to wake up at the crack of dawn to claim your spot. I love watching the swim, but unless I was buying a foal, I didn’t really feel the need to wake up quite that early (although I did do it the first year).

This year I was lucky and the swim seemed much less crowded. I staked out a spot under the foot bridge, and surprisingly didn’t have to trek through too much swamp mud to get there. I met a woman there who had been watching the swim every year for the past 24 years. In the back of my mind I wondered if that might be me someday.

I ended up standing around for nearly 3 hours waiting for the ponies to swim. I think the tide was really high and the saltwater cowboys were waiting for the water to recede. The ponies ended up making the swim with the water at its highest it had been in many years. They all made it safely ashore, and I spent an hour watching them mill around. Foals finding their mothers, Stallions finding their mares, and even stallions trying to steal other mares.

I watched as a pair of ponies plowed into one of the cameras set up by a media crew and couldn’t help but laugh. They stand in amongst the wild ponies taking pictures and filming the action, oblivious to the fact that they are STANDING IN A HERD OF WILD PONIES. I think sometimes that people forget that even though they seem very domesticated at times, the ponies live on an island – void from corrals and “normal” human contact. Their instincts to to protect their young and their herd are much stronger than a domesticated horse, and if you are standing in the way of something they want, you better make sure you get out of their way.

The swim took up most of my day as this years swim was pretty late – and not to mention the fact that then we had to walk several miles back to the Pony Centre. My feet still hurt thinking about it.

We arrived in time to grab some lunch before Minnow’s first show. Minnow painted “Slack Tide Swimmers” – what I thought was a perfect tribute to the day’s pony swim. Minnow always does his best work while on the island, maybe its the salt air, maybe he feels “home” – either way I really LOVE the paintings he creates down there. At the 8pm show he painted “Carnival Ponies” – which prompted me to head to the carnival grounds after the show.

My favorite part about the carnival grounds – not the ponies, not the rides, not even bingo – no its the soda! Something about that little plastic cup filled to the brim with pepsi and crushed ice is oh so refreshing after an exhausting day. That and a plate full of funnel cake just hit the spot. I wandered around the grounds, and ultimately ended up at the Chincoteague Pony Association Booth. Minnow donates a percentage of his sales to the CPA – to help feed and care for the wild ponies of Assateague Island. At the booth I learned that the 2009 foals from the swim never got registered with the CPA. Well I guess technically the people that got foals received a certificate that said their pony came from the ’09 swim – but they didn’t allow the purchaser to name register their foal, or have documentation of their foal’s lineage. I also found out that this would be the same for the ’10 foals.

"Slack Tide Swimmers" by Chincoteague Minnow

I’m not sure why the change – but I do hope they go back to the way it used to be – it seems much more official that way. I think the fact that they didn’t really “register” the foals this year – significantly hurt the foal prices too. Last years purchasers I believe were unaware of the change, but this year everyone knew what the plan was.