Wild Pony Run a unique fundraiser

Assateague Island, as well as the seaside town of Chincoteague Island, Va. is an impressive national treasure. Assateague Island National Seashore remains building-free and is preserved in its natural undeveloped state.

Even though we are true beach lovers, we did not venture to Chincoteague for the beach. We visited their unique town recently to see the annual Chincoteague Wild Pony Run. Just by chance we were told of the annual event by a hotel employee, and realized quickly it was something we didn’t want to miss.

You ask, ‘What is a Wild Pony Run’? The Chincoteague ponies are world famous, as there are just a few wild ponies left in North America. Each July the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department, as a fundraiser for fire equipment, swim some of them across the channel and into the town for a benefit auction. The 82-year-old tradition drew a crowd of close to 50,000 people this year.

Each year in the third week of July, the firefighters become Saltwater Cowboys and travel to the Virginia portion of Assateague Island to round-up the famous wild ponies. The fire department has obtained permission from the federal government to keep 150 adult ponies on the Virginia part of the island. The ponies are escorted by the cowboys to the channel between Assateague Island and Chincoteague, where they make their famous annual swim. They are then rested and escorted down the streets of Chincoteague to an awaiting corral. The next day, foals approximately four months old are auctioned to the highest bidder. We were told that one pony this year brought $17,500 and over $170,000 was raised for fire equipment from the sale of 73 ponies.

The following day, the remaining ponies are escorted back to the channel to make the return swim to Assateague. The reason for the auction is to keep the herd to the government-mandated number, and to raise money for the fire department. We didn’t get to experience the actual swim, but did get to see the ponies following their return to the island. They seemed a little disturbed, and were trying to get back in their usual herds. The first thing I noticed is that they are not ponies; especially ponies like I know around here. They are small horses, approximately 14 hands high. We were told their growth is stunted because of their diet on the island. They don’t have grain or green grass, only salty marsh grass to eat.

The ponies have lived on the island for generations, and no one is certain how they became residents. One theory is that a Spanish galleon carrying horses, wrecked near the island freeing the horses to swim to safety. Another idea, which is the most realistic, is that the ponies descended from stock pastured on the island by colonists. Seems the government taxed them on the size of their herd, so they hid some of them on the island.

Many visitors started coming to the island after the book ‘Misty of Chincoteague’ by Marguerite Henry was published in 1947. A movie titled ‘Misty’ was released in 1961, cementing the popularity of the unique breed of horse.

Assateague Island also extends into Maryland, and a herd of the ponies also live there. They are not rounded up and sold, but their population is controlled by a vaccine administered to the mares. In doing research on the Chincoteague ponies, I found that horses with many of the same traits can be found on the national seashores of Cape Hatteras and Cape Lookout in North Carolina, and Cumberland Island in Georgia.