Go to full screen. Very neat!!!
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Absolutely loved going in person - not just for the swim. There are several other events throughout the year. (https://www.chincoteague.com/pony_swim_guide.html for info if anyone is interested).
ETA: Talked my mom into going with me on our yearly vacation to Chincoteague next year instead of Florida (which we have been doing for 30 years lol). She LOVED the idea and wants to add Baltimore, Boston, NYC and my hometown in Western Mass! We miss living on the East Coast and havenât been back in a while. @walktrot thank you for posting this and giving me the idea 
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I hope you will have the time of your lives!
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Whatâs nice, to my eyes anyway, is that the ponies seem so ho-hum about it. What a contrast to the helicopter roundups of the mustangs
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Thank you for that video link! A useful drone! It is clearly well-organized and the ponies seem to be fine.
I attended one year in the 90âs with a neice & nephew (cousins to each other, close in age, boy & girl). A âjust to say we did itâ day trip and because (at the time, at least) it really was a low-key good time at kid-speed. Small country fair, plenty of stuff they could do, they could have some freedom within eyesight because the grounds were not huge or overcrowded.
It was my first time to see Chincoteague ponies in person. I was surprised at how small the adult ponies are. But that would make sense for survival on the island. That and how casual, homey and non-touristy the fair was were the biggest surprises for me. Really enjoyed the day there.
Just to be a good sport and contribute a little to the ponies, I bought a raffle ticket for a pony foal. The odds of winning a pony foal were so low that I didnât worry or think about it. I figured that in the unlikely event that our ticket was chosen, we could donate the foal back to the fire department to go into the pony auction.
But the two kids had a different idea! They intended to win a pony foal! They spent the hours before the raffle drawing planning with each other where the pony would live and how they would take care of the pony. How they would negotiate with their parents. On and on. Endless subject between the two of them.
Overhearing this, I realized that my donation plan might encounter heated resistance. That could last for years. I began trying to figure out if a pony foal could fit into the back of a Saturn with two kids, for a long drive across several states.
And if it were true that the kidsâ backyards were really large enough for a pony that would grow up to be rather small. And if the neighborhood zoning would allow it. And what their parent would say.
Fortunately our raffle ticket was not drawn. The kids were disappointed and I pretended that I was, too. 
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Great story! My sister and I wanted a pony. We knew there was room for one behind our house. Dad said âsureâ every time we asked. But when he inquired about whether we had saved up enough money we had to admit it. Not yet. 
My sister didnât care.
I had to wait until I was 53 but I got a full size horse.
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We visited Pony Penning Days in 2000. It was awesome. The ponies moved down the road without batting an eye at their surroundings. Lots of seasoned mares keeping their babies calm along the way. Once they were in the holding pen, they relaxed, ate some hay, drifted to the corral fence for some scratches, etc⊠They were used to being handled, the big crowds, and staying in the pens.
The only criticism I had was how the foals were handled. Big dudes grabbing them roughly and hauling them out by hand for people to see. No ropes or leads. Baby horses screaming and thrashing around in the arms of these beefy guys. I couldnât tell, but it looked like they were holding sensitive areas underneath to keep them still (sheath? Udder?). Not nice. They could figure out a nicer way. When we moved calves, we used a soft slip on halter and a loop of soft lead rope around their rump. Theyâd jump around, but did okay. Most of these ponies are small. They could handle them nicely.
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I didnât get good pictures of the handlers when we were there, but I pulled this off the internet. Um, hey buddy, whereâs that hand going? No where good based on that clamped tail.
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And if it were true that the kidsâ backyards were really large enough for a pony that would grow up to be rather small. And if the neighborhood zoning would allow it.
time to interject an off-track
We kept my wifeâs childhood pony in our house in Kentucky. pony lived in the basement
This Welsh pony may have been famous as the catalysts for Grandma Got Run Over written by a Reindeer. Randy Brooks who wrote it was a close friend of my wifeâs family so he knew what happened when my wife got her pony as a Christmas Day present. (by the way Randy and his twin brother Ron were nephews of Foster Brooks who back then was famous as an entertainer)
Wifeâs grand parents who had extensive knowledge of how to hitch a horse since both as youths had traveled by covered wagons from Oklahoma to Texas in the very early 1900s
Christmas pony came complete with cart and harness. The grandparents were helping with hitching pony to cart. Grandmother was heading the pony which spooked in the excitement running over grandmother (not harming her)
We kept the pony with us until her death in 1986 in our backyard,
Pony was named Smokie, her buddy was wifeâs other horse a QH named Fire. Michael Martin Murphy was a friend of wifeâs family who knew of Fire.
They all lived and worked as youth in the dinner theater world on then far north Dallas (all of which is now way south of LBI Freeway)
Might need to dig out those boxes upon box of super eight movies they shot during the late 50s and early 60s to see what that area once was no more than poor cotton fields
Back to Chincoteague ponies
Marguerite Henry , who wrote the Misty of Chincoteague novels also wrote Justin Morgan Had a Horse.
She used her horses as sources for her books. She owned a Morgan named Friday, Misty of Chincoteague and a burro named Jiggs who was the inspiration as she wrote the book Brighty of the Grand Canyon.
When we got into Morgans in the late 1980s she was still involved with the breed
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During Covid they did the auction fully online.
It was fun to see all the photos of all the ponies and dream of owning one.
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I would not assume nefarious things in that photo.
Where else would you suggest they put their arm? That foal is too big to have one around the chest and one around the rump, so that is the logical place to put your arm next.
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& here I thought I held the record for 1st Horse of My Own @ 39.
I hope @walktrot you had the same years of schoolies & shareboards that filled my intervening years 
Back on topic, a friendâs daughter lives in MD & a couple years ago they went to see the Pony Swim.
Friend is a paintaholic, she was in absolute heaven & if sheâd had a trailer with, would probably have come home with a pony 
Visiting Chincoteague is on my Bucket List 
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I suppose you had to be there watching them handle foal after foal. They were grabbing underneath with each one. I was there with a trainer friend of mine and she was more appalled because sheâs worked with foals.
They could also stop pulling them out by hand and use a lane with a small corral to move the foals where bidders can see them. It would be easier to see them without so many people wrestling with them. If they really want to be nice, they could let them stay with the mothers until after the bidding so theyâre calmer. Doing it a certain way because of tradition is stupid when there are safer ways that donât traumatize foals.
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