Everything Tyler knows about horses was passed down from Walter and his Mom, Wanda, also an experienced horse person. Tyler and his Dad are rarely seen apart. The Marks family lives in Onley. His mother is the nurse at Nandua Middle School. Walter, Wanda, Tyler and his sister Ashley, are all members of the Melfa Fire Department. Wanda and Amanda, an older sister, also work for an ambulance company. On fire and rescue calls, sometimes more than one of them goes on the same call. Tyler is also a member of the Onley Fire Department, going out on calls there too. At a big building fire in Onley last Sunday all the Marks were there.
“There are more accidents on weekends and sometimes I just stay over at the firehouse,” he said. It has been a rough year for firemen on the Shore. “We buried three of our members this year,” said Tyler. One fire call they worked until 4 a.m., he recalled. “Monday was the worst day I ever had at school.”
Tyler attended classes every Sunday for six months to become a certified firefighter. As a junior fireman, his main job was to set up lighting and ventilation if needed as well as other equipment. Now, Tyler is a certified firefighter. “At the Onley fire,” said Walter, “Tyler was inside with an air pack, fighting the fire.
The work of a fireman and his time with horses is mostly outside which is just fine with Tyler. He does not own a computer and does not play video games. He does, however, text his friends from his cell phone and knows how to respond to the fire pager.
Every afternoon, Tyler and Walter head out to a nearby farm where they feed and care for their three horses, Mo, Clint and Tig. How Tyler came to have Tig, a Chincoteague pony, is a story itself.
Each year Tyler and Walter attend a mule show in Powellville, Md., near Snow Hill. Five years ago Tyler entered a raffle for a Chincoteague pony. “They sold the tickets for a dollar a piece. I bought way more than just one ticket,” Tyler said. When the winning ticket was drawn, Tyler found out he had won. The Marks brought home Tig.
His relationship with Tig has grown. “I’m almost to the point that I think I can ride him,” he said. Every day after school he and his dad train, play and spend time with all three of their horses.
Tyler has been going to the roundups as long as he can remember. He has previously ridden alone in the swim back, when the southern herd is returned to their Assateague Island home. Pony Penning is the only vacation the Marks take, with them spending the week on Chincoteague. Tyler’s mom goes on duty as a nurse with the medical crew.
Tyler’s first outing as a Cowboy was in the fall roundup and he also rode in the spring roundup. But this will be his first time riding alone at every Pony Penning event and it is a busy week for the cowboys. Their work begins long before the big crowd of up to 40,000 visitors ever get to see them.
Harry Thornton, chairman of the Pony Committee, said he has watched Tyler grow up alongside his Dad. “It seems like in the last two or three years Tyler has grown and matured,” said Mr. Thornton. “It is a pleasure to have him finally riding with us.” Mr. Thornton said Tyler has been helpful to the fire company through the years and he deserves to ride. Tyler was approved by the Pony Committee to become a Salt Water Cowboy.
There are a number of father-son rider combinations who are cowboys and some families have more than two riders. The riders, all volunteers, come from as far as North Carolina, Delaware and Maryland.
For the Marks, the day before they leave for a roundup has its own routine. He and his Dad go to the stables where their horses are kept, brush and feed them and make sure that everything they’ll need for the following day is in its “easy to pick-up” spot.
Each roundup takes two days of their time and throughout Pony Penning they are busy seven days straight.
The Chincoteague ponies are divided into the southern and northern herds, about 150 in all plus about 70 foals that will be auctioned off. For the southern roundup, the riders will report in the late afternoon, July 25, Saturday. The cowboys can usually be seen on the range to the right of Beach Road, often with the ponies scampering ahead of them toward a holding area off the Woodland Trail. Once all of the ponies have arrived there, they will be moved to the big corral near the Beach Road curve.
On Sunday, July 25 while veterinarian Dr. Charlie Cameron and his staff are checking the southern ponies, the cowboys are off to the much larger northern range to get this herd into their corral, about 3.5 miles out on the service road that runs off the Wildlife Loop.
Then, with another early day in front of them, the cowboys will escort the northern ponies over to the beach and walk them in a tight formation down the Atlantic
Ocean shore line, an event that is now attended by some 3,000-plus visitors, eager to get a look at the famous ponies. This “Beach Walk” ends at the southern corral where both herds remain until the swim on Wednesday. The stallions, used to having control over their own bands of mares in the wild, are not always friendly to each other.
Tyler knows this corral almost as well as his own yard. He has spent many hours here helping feed the ponies and filling water tubs. One year, with his Dad and a friend, he spent the entire night there, keeping an eye on the ponies all night long. He wrote about this in his 7th grade journalism class at Nandua Middle and his story still appears on this website. The job of a Salt Water Cowboy is not always an easy one. For one thing, the wilds of Assateague Island in the summer have swarms of mosquitoes and biting bugs of all kinds and by the end of July the heat can be overpowering.
Depending on the weather, the range can be muddy and somewhat dangerous even to experienced horsemen. Tyler said in the spring roundup there were no unpleasant surprises but he did get to “go swimming” when his horse dropped into a hole filled with water. “I voluntarily jumped off,” he said. “If there’s a rider who hasn’t had a mishap, he’s just lucky. There are always interesting moments because you’re trying to get the ponies to go where they don’t want to go.”
On auction day, Tyler can be found right in the ring as one of the wranglers. Two wranglers work together to hold onto a bucking pony and move the pony around the ring so prospective bidders can get a look. “Last July when I walked through the gate a pony reared and kicked,” he said. “I got my middle finger bone broken in two places, and it chipped my ring finger.”
For the past 28 summers the Marks family has helped run a special needs camp at Camp Occohannock in Belle Haven, an Eastern Shore community. Along with other volunteers they provide crafts and activities including fishing, horseback, riding and games.
Now in his last two years of high school, Tyler is looking toward the future. “I may go into the Coast Guard,” he said, “but I don’t want a desk job. I’ve got to be doing something outside.”
Misty Thornton is co-editor and Mr. Boswell is the publisher of www.wildponytales.info.