Chasin'

Herein, one of my latest adventures.

Every pony-crazy kid since the 1950s has read Misty of Chincoteague and dreamed of winning a pony at auction.

Me too.

On July 28th I went to the Island to see it for myself some fifty years after reading the book.  The “swim” takes place on Wednesday and is part of a full week of festivities.

My group arrived at 8:30 am, long after the regulars had spread out their blankets to stake a spot.  They came with chairs, books and coolers.  We were clearly rookies – we brought only ourselves.

Salt Water Cowboys-in-training come in every size, gender and state of undress.

With no chairs, and over three hours until the Ponies swim the Channel, we decided to head to the carnival grounds, the rides and some food.  Nothing going on there either – but we did find the last two hundred feet of roadway before the Ponies get to the pens and, YES!, there was no one there yet.  I parked myself in the shade, smug in the knowledge that I had a front row seat to the parade.  A real plus – the stand selling the deep fried clam sandwiches was just around the corner.

A seat in the shade, a great view of the dumpster, my back pack marking my spot.

Eventually the Ponies swam the Channel, rested for an hour and then were driven across the island …

Ponies preceded by the police honor guard, who have perfected the "royal wave"...

...and a chocolate Pony.

The Salt Cowboys draw their members from the Volunteer Fire Company of Chincoteague.

In a lovely symmetry, Salt Cowboys contribute their time and effort to maintain the herd during the year and sales of the ponies support the Fire Company.

The Salt Cowboys provide a mobile cordon for the herd on the move.

Legend traces the Ponies to Spanish horses shipwrecked off the islands, other speculate they descend from livestock set loose by early settlers.

Many of the ponies come in a plain brown wrapper...

... but there are also many pintos, owing to the introduction of new blood a century ago

The whole parade is over in less than ninety seconds.  A whole day’s efforts, getting up at 3:30, the long time on the road, worth the ninety seconds?

Absolutely, positively.

At the straggle end came a pinto colt with two blue eyes.  He was so weary he was having trouble keeping up.

I name the colt Frank on account of "Ol' Blue Eyes".

Frank makes his way through the paddock for food...

...and some rest.

Like a puppy circling for the best spot, Frank checks his alternatives...

...closes his eyes...

...and then, completely exhausted, keels over.

A little later, he perks back up.

I hope that he makes a good transition, that nobody bought him, that he puts on some weight.  It is the policy of the auction not to separate suckling foals – I hope they passed him over.  I think a lot about Frank, he has a tug on my heart.  It makes me want to go back next year and see if he is OK.

It is probably a good thing that the auction takes place on Thursday and I am back at my own farm taking care of my two boys.  Ah, the temptation.

For more about the Carnival, the swim and the auction, go here.

And as Jane says, “Onward”.

My name is Beth and I am Sideline’s newest blogger.  I am thrilled to have been invited to tell you a little bit about my life; it’s a charmed life I couldn’t have even imagined as a kid growing up on the north shore of Long Island.  I loved horses from “I don’t know when” and as a little kid, my father occasionally took me to a hack stable somewhere on the east of the island.  He rode on those trips too, which now, as I am thinking of it, was a huge gift, as he’d never ridden as a child or an adult.  But he gamely rode alongside to make my dreams come true.  Then, at twelve, he bought me a pony mare, with a foal at her side (who knew how crazy that was); her name was Maybelle.  Can you imagine?  She was a feisty little girl, a pinto with a huge brown map of the United States on her left barrel.  During the winter months, she lived in our neighbor’s barn, at the back, with the pigs.  No kidding.

In the spring, I took one of those metal curry combs and took off all of that “stuff” along with her long hair.  I read the Horsemasters series of books and jealously followed the careers of my classmates who were showing on the circuit.  I grew out of my pony and up to a grade quarterhorse type who in true teenage fashion I named “Mi Querido” – “My Beloved”.  He followed me to my senior year of college in Washington, DC, where he lived in splendor in Potomac, Maryland.  I rode him along the canal, me in my fancy western saddle purchased at the Agway, in the middle of English hunter-jumper territory.  Then, on to graduate school, several moves up and down the Atlantic coast, work in Boston and Philadelphia, marriage and a daughter, and a twelve year horse drought.

At 33, I was working and looking to re-connect with the horse world.  My boss’s son was riding with some guy out near me and he suggested I should give the guy a call for some lessons.  So I did.  Bruce Davidson picked up the phone.  What kind of riding do I do?  Trail.  What is my level?  At the point, probably walk-trot (did I even remember what a diagonal was?)  He was so gracious.  He told me that he had a friend who was taking students and I should call her.  So I did.  Jane Sleeper gave me directions to her place in West Grove, I drove out from my home in Wilmington, and she gave me a lesson on Sooner Saint.  It turns out, now, that I was her first “up-down” student in her new business.  That summer, Jane took me out for one of the transforming moments in my life.  At the crack of dawn, I saddled up one of her horses, we hacked a couple of miles across the Chester County landscape.  We arrived at the Cheshire kennels as the sun came up, out came the hounds and the huntsman, and we went for a spin around the block.  I didn’t even know this kind of thing went on in this country.

When my husband and I needed a larger home for our new family, we moved out to where I was taking lessons.  And that is how I came to live in Unionville, Pennsylvania, right across from the New Bolton Center, round the corner from the Cheshire kennels, and smack in the middle of horse heaven.  It wasn’t by design that all of this incredible stuff happened, I sort of fell into it.

We still live in the same house twenty five years later.  Every morning, every single morning, I get up, look out the window and I am still overwhelmed by the beauty of where I live and the immense feeling of gratitude that I have for being able to participate in this Chester County life.

Thusly, serendipity has put me into a world beyond my imagining.  And I am happy, yes thrilled, to be a part of it, and to share it with you.

Check back soon for Sidelines’ newest blog!