left early Sunday morning (5 a.m.) for my Virginia Shore trip. I'm not going to go into everything, but the highlight of the trip was the Pony Penning at Chincoteague Island Virginia.
The ponies on C Island are owned by the fire department which manages the herd. The license to own these ponies limits them to a herd of 150. So every July they round up ponies to have them auctioned off, the revenue from this auction pays for the manageing of the herd.
These ponies today are directly descended from ponies that survived the wreck of a Spanish galleons several hundred years ago. No other breed of horses are permitted to be with the C ponies.
This year was the 89th year for the pony penning. To support the fire department a carnival was established 89 years ago to swim some of the ponies to Assateague Island for auction. It has grown from a few hundred spectators to (as estimated yesterday) over 40,000. There were people everywhere. I apologize for the quality of the pictures, but I was very very far away and had to go into digital zoom, which is definitely NOT the way to go. But something is better than nothing.
Anyhoo we were up at 5 a.m. yesterday morning. Had breakfast, boarded the bus and headed to the pony penning. Arrived at 8:30, which is when our tour guide was told to arrive - because of parking. School bus shuttle busses ran from all the parking areas.
The actual swimming of the ponies is not done until sometime between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Until then you are just waiting around.
Surrounded by a growing crowd, who had folding lawn chairs with them. Luckily there were a few places to sit - picnic tables, benches, etc., if you were lucky enough to find one. But you could not see the festivities from there.So a lot of the time we were standing. People were just coming and coming and coming.
Why between 11 and 1? Because you are waiting for the "golden" time. And what the heck is that? It is the few - very few - minutes called the slack tide, which is when there is no tide coming in or going out. It is in that small window of opportunity that the have to swim the ponies, other wise the tide would take them out to sea.
A few minutes before the golden moment, a canon is set off. That lets everyone know that the time is coming. The ponies had been rounded up by the cowboys early, and were waiting off - way off - in the distance. The canon went off. Everyone headed for the shore to watch. Lots and lots of everyones.
There were lots of kayaks on the water. They helped the cowboys herd the horses across the bay and onto dry land. Once the swim was completed the ponies were allowed to rest and dry out. Then they were escorted into the carnival area where there was a lot paddock filled with hay, oats and grain, and water for the ponies.
The cowboys herded the ponies down the Main Street, with police escort and all to the paddock. The auction is taking place today. I was told by a native of Chincoteague Island that last year one of the stallions sold for $17,000.00.. Not a typo. They are beautiful creatures with a lot of history connected to them. I am sharing some pictures. They are not the greatest but will give you some idea of what it is all about. I hope you have enjoyed your history lesson and God Bless.....
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