Wild, Wild Ponies

The ponies of Chincoteague and Assateague Islands make their famous swim every July.

The horses of Chincoteague and Assateague Islands make their famous swim every July.

in recent years, I have taken several trips to photograph wild horses. These trips have taken me west, where horses roam free and cowboys and cowgirls still ride the range. But last year, I wanted to do something different and head east to a place I’ve only visited in the pages of a favorite childhood book: Misty of Chincoteague. When most of us think of wild horses, we think of the American West, with its iconic herds of Mustangs. But wild horses can be found all across the U.S., including the coastlines of Virginia and Maryland.

These wild horses are believed to have been on a galleon ship, bound for America from Spain. The ship wrecked in a storm, and the horses were able to swim to safety to the shores of Chincoteague and Assateague Islands, where they learned to survive on their own. A recent discovery of a shipwreck off of Assateague Island supports this theory.

While they are proportioned like horses, people most often refer to them as ponies due to their small stature, caused by a less-than-ideal diet of salt marsh plants and brush.

Seeing the ponies of Chincoteague and Assateague with my own eyes was a childhood dream come true. Getting to photograph them and come home with memories in the form of photographs was an unforgettable experience.

A herd heads back to the dunes from the beach. The ponies often go to the beach midday to get a break from the flies.

After photographing the sunrise, we moved on and found an area where two herds were grazing close to each other. We got there just in time to see and photograph a stallion confrontation.

The skirmish was fairly mild compared to the violence you see between Mustang stallions, but still exciting to watch and photograph. The tour guide told us that seeing this kind of interaction is rare, which made it even more special.

I invited several friends to join me on this adventure. We planned to spend one day in Chincoteague and take a boat tour to get better access to the ponies. We talked the boat captain of Salt Water Pony Tours into taking us out before sunrise, and I’m glad we did, as the sunrise that morning was nothing short of spectacular!

These wild ponies are more accustomed to people, so they were easier to photograph than wild Mustangs, who often run when they see people. They are still cautious, and we were careful to keep a proper distance from them.