I’m just going to say from the start that I’ve never read Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry, and I’ve never seen the movie either, since both were well before my time, but I’ve known about them all my life.  The story is apparently a semi-fictional account of two orphan children raising a wild pony foal, but the real fun of it all is that there really are wild ponies on Chincoteague Island.   Or, to be more precise, they’re on Assateague Island, although they’re called Chincoteague ponies.  I don’t know why.

According to Wikipedia: “Several legends are told regarding the origins of the Chincoteague, the most popular holds that they descend from survivors of wrecked Spanish galleons off the Virginia coast. It is more likely that they descend from stock released on the island by 17th-century colonists looking to escape livestock laws and taxes on the mainland. In 1835, the practice of pony penning began, with local residents rounding up ponies and removing some of them to the mainland. In 1924 the first official Pony Penning Day was held by the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, where ponies were auctioned as a way to raise money for fire equipment. The annual event has continued in the same fashion almost uninterrupted to the present day.”  There’s other interesting information about them on Wiki if you’re interested.

I was told that the Fire Department has grazing rights for 150 ponies on Assateague Island, with one herd of 50 at the south end of the island, and the remainder having free rein (so to speak) on the northern end, which is inaccessible to vehicles.  After stopping at the Chamber of Commerce on Chincoteague to find out what they knew about the current location of the southern herd, I drove over to Assateague.  There’s usually a fee to get onto the island, but I happened to get there on Martin Luther King Day, and in his honor entrance was free that day.

After driving around the area where the ponies were last sighted, and seeing nothing, I continued on to the beach on Assateague Island, and then onto the beach itself.  I’m not generally a fan of getting salt water and sand on my truck, but this was a bit too good to resist.

There were a few fishermen farther down the beach, but otherwise I had the place almost to myself.  As I mentioned in my East Coast Beaches post, this was probably mainly because it was winter, but wow… even in winter, what a beautiful place.

After giving the ponies a bit of time to hopefully move around a bit, I drove back out to where they were likely to be.  And there they were, how exciting!!   You see those two white specks just below the horizon in the picture below?  Look closer.  Those are Chincoteague ponies.  And this was as close as I was going to be able to get to them.  My slight disappointment was tempered when I remembered what this meant — that they truly are wild, and have all this land to call their own without interference from touristy types like me.

Luckily those binoculars I bought way back in California came in handy again, as I was able to hold my phone up against them and take a few grainy photos to show that those distant dots really were ponies.

There was only one in the open at first, but then two more came slowly out of the trees.

I eventually realized the futility of trying to take more pictures this way, and just sat there watching them through the binoculars.  I’m told that they’re actually horses, but a couple of centuries of living on the salt marshes have reduced them in size.  They were rather adorably small and shy from what I could see… like horse hobbits.

After a while I realized that three wild ponies was going to be my quota for the day, and even those were starting to wander out of view again.  I drove back to Chincoteague and wandered the quiet town for a while, making sure that I saw the statue of Misty on the main road.  It included a rooster and a duck.  I don’t know why.

The nice lady at the Chamber of Commerce must have known that the wild herd can be hard to see at times, because she gave me a quiet hint to take a drive down to the firehouse and wander around the back.  Sure enough, I found about seven lovely little foals, or perhaps yearlings.  I understand that they were just brought in from the wild herd.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps they’ll be sold at the next auction, which will be July 26 and 27th (cvfc3.com for details).   They were very fuzzy and quite shy, although I wouldn’t call them nervous, just wary.

This little filly was the most curious about me, but still kept her distance from the fence where I stood.

Considering that I had never even read the book, I found myself surprisingly eager to meet the famous ponies, and in the end was quite happy with what I was able to see of them.  They’re probably as accessible as they can be, while remaining wild.  Fare thee well, horse hobbits..