Posts Tagged ‘assateague
Pony Penning 2013: Painting Pony Performs in Chincoteague
Each year our ponies are invited to perform during Pony Penning week at the Chincoteague Pony Centre. This great honor is the main purpose of our trip each year – and something we look forward to.
This year we decided to bring two ponies, the ever talented Chincoteague Minnow and his buddy Chesapeake Boomerang. This was Boomer’s first trip to Pony Penning and his first time ever performing tricks in front of a crowd.
Boomer settled in quite easily, and Minnow enjoyed having a buddy to boss around with him. Minnow quickly took on the roll of head “stallion” and kept a close eye on his younger pal Boomerang.
One of the first ponies they met on the trip was Boomer’s little half sister Juniper, who had been born on the last day of June. Boomer was particularly fascinated by her, and took every chance he had to get close to her.
Juniper reminded me a lot of Boomer, fearless and brave – not much fazed her, even as she plodded around the arena in the nightly shows at the Pony Centre.
When it came time for our boy’s performances in the Pony Shows at the Centre Minnow performed like the pro he is.
Minnow opened each show by painting a special work of art that would later be auctioned off to the highest bidder.
Minnow always does his best work while on the island, and he created 8 wonderful paintings that all went off to happy new homes.
Later in the show Minnow came back out for everyone to sing Happy Birthday to him as we celebrated his 20th Birthday. He loved being the center of attention.
Now Boomer had spent the weeks leading up to Pony Penning learning a trick skit that he would perform during the shows. Having never even performed in public before let alone learn an entire performance, this was a completely new experience for Boomer. And honestly I wasn’t sure how he would react.
Boomer’s skit was based on the idea that he was headed off to Trick Pony School, and as his teacher I had lessons that he had to learn. Here you see me holding up a photo of Misty shaking hands with Marguerite Henry, and then asking him to mimic the photo by shaking my hand.
The first time Boomer entered the arena things seemed to be going well, and then the crowd let out a cheer and applause and he about jumped out of his skin – bolting to the gate. I was able to get him to return to his pedestal to perform each trick, but every time the crowd clapped he would again bolt to the gate.
Amazingly Boomer performed every single trick I asked him to – including his spectacular sit on the beanbag trick, he was just clearly frightened of the clapping. But about the 3rd performance in he started to get over it and by the end of the week he could of cared less that people were cheering and clapping for him.
Boomer got so into his performances that he knew the order of tricks that were coming before I could even ask him to perform them. I would have to rush to get his beanbags set up for him before he decided just to sit on the ground!
I was so pleased with how he did, and I think everyone loved his big personality. He did a wonderful job showing just how smart and talented these Chincoteague Ponies are, and I’m sure this is just the first of many performances for Boomer.
On our last day on the island Boomer got to compete in the Pony Show’s Extreme Pony Race – I think he was a bit surprised to enter the arena this time with a jump in front of him, but he did well – and only threw in a few small bucks! I was relieved he didn’t decide to show the crowd his bronco bucking skills!
By the end of the week I was so proud of both of my boys. Thinking back on how far both of them have come, and how talented and amazing they are makes me proud. I love being able to share these amazing ponies with people and I hope everyone that gets to meet them think they are just as special as I do.
Tomorrow I’ll be back to share all about of experience at the epic Chincoteague Pony Swim, and you can read all about the Beach Walk in yesterday’s post.
You can check out all the photos from the beach walk, pony swim and auction HERE. They are also available for purchase!
Pony Penning 2013: Beach Walk
With our trip to the 88th Annual Chincoteague Pony Swim & Auction over I thought it would be fun to go back and recap all of our adventures on the island during the week.
This year we decided to head down on Sunday morning with the ponies (instead of our usual monday morning departure) so that we could see the Annual Beach Walk – something I had never seen before.
On the way onto Chincoteague we stopped at the fairgrounds to set-up our chairs for the auction on Thursday. Last year someone moved our chairs – so I wasn’t going to let that happen this year…
I may have gone a little crazy with the rope! But after having knee surgery earlier this year I knew I couldn’t last standing all day.
We then dropped off Minnow and Boomer at the Pony Centre and readied ourselves to attend the beach walk the next day.
Based on what I had read on the Pony Swim Guide, we had to be at the Assateague Island Beach by 6am on Monday morning in order to see the ponies walk the beach. Driving over the bridge to Assateague, it’s $8 for a day pass, which allows you to park your car in the beach lot and walk up towards the ocean.
Tip for next year: Bring a beach chair with you! You can stake out a spot to watch the walk along the beach as the saltwater cowboys bring the northern herd down the beach to join the ponies in the southern corral. We ended up waiting over an hour for the walk to take place, with the ponies arriving at our spot on the beach around 7:30am. But the nice part is that this event is not hot or buggy and you don’t have to stand in swamp water to enjoy it. My suggestion is to pack some breakfast, bring a chair, and be prepared to wait a little – but it was totally worth it!
This year the beach walk came along with lots of fog due to a rainstorm from the night before.
Afterwards you can follow the herd back to the southern corral and view all of the ponies in one place – we opted to head out though because we had to be back at the Pony Centre to feed our hungry ponies.
Tomorrow I’ll be back to share how the ponies did with their first performances of the week at the Pony Centre!
You can check out all the photos from the beach walk, pony swim and auction HERE. They are also available for purchase!
Painting Before Pony Penning
With our Pony Penning Trip just around the corner (next week!) Minnow has been doing a little painting to get ready.
With Paintbrush in mouth, he’s been creating some special masterpieces to take with us on the trip to the island.
Minnow is all smiles, as one of his favorite things to do is to paint!
Around here we like to think the mark of a true artist is the mess he leaves behind – and Minnow certainly knows how to make a mess!
See you all at Pony Penning 2013!
Painting Pony heads to Pony Penning 2013
The date is quickly approaching for our annual homecoming of sorts as we travel back to where it all started, Chincoteague Island, for the annual pony swim and auction. Plans are being made and the training has begun as Painting Pony prepares once again to wow the crowds at the Chincoteague Pony Centre all week long!
Only this year is going to be different! Instead of just bringing the super talented Minnow, head Painting Pony and trick pony extrodinaire, we are brining TWO ponies! This year for the first time ever Chesapeake Boomerang aka Boomer will be performing in the nightly shows as well.
Boomer has been working tirelessly on learning new tricks and preparing to appear in front of a crowd, and we’re just excited as you are to see him perform. He’s also been brushing up on some classic reading in preparation for the big trip, because how could he have gotten this far in life without reading Misty of Chincoteague?
We couldn’t be more excited for this year’s trip, and we hope you’ll come visit us at the Chincoteague Pony Centre!
Painting Pony at the Chincoteague Pony Centre 2013
Monday, July 22, 2013 to Friday, July 26, 2013
4:00pm and 8:00pm
See Chincoteague Minnow paint and Chesapeake Boomerang perform at the Chincoteague Pony Centre during Pony Penning week. Last performance is at 4pm on July 26th.
Find out more about the Chincoteague Pony Penning HERE.
Boomerang Learns to Sit
Boomer is one of those rare ponies that will do just about anything for his “person”, combine that with the fact that he’s pretty fearless – makes the things he can accomplish (in a short amount of time) quite amazing.
So last week I decided I wanted to teach Boomer to sit on some beanbag chairs I had been saving since I was a kid – just for this reason. He had already had some practice targeting his rear end to things, but I had never fully gotten him to sit on anything from a stand-still.
After a few short sessions over a period of 3 days I had him successfully sitting on his bean bags. He was very proud of himself once he figured out what I wanted and now he doesn’t even want to get off of the beanbags.
As he progresses in his training I will slowly remove some of the beanbags until he can hopefully just use one to sit on.
Next he’ll be learning to shake hands while sitting on his beanbag! He’s such a cool pony!
