The Painting Ponies that I live with are a special breed (according to my mom). They are all Chincoteague Ponies, which means they were either born wild on Assateague Island in Virginia or they are related to the wild ponies from the island. My best pony friend Minnow was born wild on Assateague 18 years ago – how cool is that – technically I’m friends with a wild animal! Mom says Boomerang and Blitz are not directly from the island, but their parents are.
Since I learned that to get off the island, Minnow had to join in on the annual Pony Swim, I decided that Blitz and Boomerang should probably learn to swim too. It was time for initiation!
I of course watched safely from the sidelines.
Blitz and Boomerang are on the left, and my other pony friend Jet is on the right. Jet is not a Chincoteague Pony so she was exempt from initiation, but chose to participate – well, because she’s an overachiever.
The ponies we’re just taking too long to get to the swimming part, so I had to send in my assistant to get them moving.
It’s Super Trooper, assistant swim coach!
I like to make Trooper think he’s important.
And we have a swimmer! Boomerang has passed initiation! Now he can call himself a real Chincoteague Pony. I’m like the best swim coach ever!
There should be a trophy for that or something!
Beautiful!
So cool! I loved Marguerite Henrys’ books! This is so neat to actually see these pix from the books I read as a little girl! Do you do this annually?
My ponies usually take a few trips to our local lake to go swimming in the summer. We’ll have to wait until next summer though! You can check out their adventures at Painting Pony