The ponies made it across the channel yesterday from the Assateague Island to Chincoteague amidst stormy weather.
The thunderstorm came around 11 am drenching thousands of onlookers…that showed up for the 88th annual Pony Swim and parade.
The Saltwater Cowboys herded around 150 ponies making the crossing in around 5 minutes.
Kendy Allen with the Chincoteague Pony Center says , the ponies do not have to swim much and figures the distance they have to cross less than a quarter of a mile andis not that deep.
She says, "The water feels wonderful and cool to them. In fact," she adds, "Very few people know that every now and then, some of the horses swim across on their own from Assateague to Chincoteague just to come over to see the town. It's not a stressful thing for them.
They will go up for auction today with prices going as high a $1000.
Allen describes the Chincoteague ponies as having "a horse size brain and a large pony body. They love kikds and they're very intelligent. "They're very hardy, they're very strong,"
She notes that," We have ponies who have done eventing on a national level. That's where they do dressage, sstadium jumping and cross country jumping we've had chincoteague ponies who have done barrel-racing. I don't think there is anything that a Chincoteague pony can't do."
The Pony Penning was made famous by Margarite Heny's famous novel, "Misty of Chincoteague" published in the late 1940's.
The event itself arose after the town decided it wanted to fund a fire department in the 1920's. Allen says, "They came up with this idea of a carnival and rounding up the ponies and selling them as a fundraiser. And, it's grown since then."
