Chincoteague Wild Pony Swim 2011

There are few places these days where you can see both the eyes of parents and their children mist over from an experience they share together, but one place where this is sure to happen is the famous Chincoteague Wild Pony Swim. When the ponies arrive on the marshy Chincoteague shore after the short swim across Assateague Channel, thousands of people are there to greet them. It is a rare opportunity to see these famous ponies up close, and some people even reach out to rub their noses as they receive a 45 minute rest, before moving on to the carnival grounds. When the ponies come out of Pony Swim Lane, under the watchful guidance of the Chincoteague Volunteer Firemen also known as the Salt Water Cowboys, they parade along three miles of crowd-lined Chincoteague streets. Once in the carnival grounds, the ponies enter a large corral where there is hay and fresh water awaiting them. There, they will spend the night, the last night the foals will spend with their mothers before being sold at auction the next day and going to new homes across the nation. Sometimes, visitors are surprised to see a brand new foal born overnight in this corral. The newborn will be sold at the auction along with all the others, but will not leave its mother until later on.

For an informative article written about the 2011 Chincoteague Wild Pony Swim, please visit Wild Pony Tales at: http://wildponytales.info/archives/1994 or feel free to check out more from us, including upcoming island events at http://www.wildponytales.info.

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