Posted By Admin on July 21, 2009

 

By Robert Boswell and Kate White

It is an hour before show time.

But unlike on Broadway, for this show some performers have to be brought in from the paddock out front, manes have to be brushed and braided, and girths tightened so saddles won’t slip.  Instead of the dressing room, trips are made back and forth to the tack room, for bridles and blankets.  And by the way, don’t forget the bug spray.

Chincoteague ponies are being pampered and saddled but there is work ahead.  At 8 p.m. they will carry their riders, members of the Chincoteague Pony Drill Team, into the indoor ring at the Chincoteague Pony Centre before an audience of excited children and parents. Chances are the spectators will not be disappointed. Chincoteague and Assateague are islands on the Eastern Shore of Virginia.

For the next hour the ponies and their riders will perform skilled maneuvers that call for expert horsemanship, working as a team to coordinated music. But probably no one will take home a memory that means more than being able to go up to the ring and pat the ponies at the end of the show. And for those old enough to have read Marguerite Henry’s “Misty of Chincoteague,” it will be a special memory to take home because some of the ponies are descendents of the famous “Misty.” Misty’s last grand foal, Misty II, spent her final summer at the pony centre and is buried on the property.

Misty has a heavy presence in the museum that surrounds the show ring, with a photo display from the movie, “Misty,” with Grandma and Grandpa Beebe, and a Misty family tree on a wall and a display of all of Marguerite Henry’s books.

If that’s not enough, there are the neighs and movement of Misty descendents in nearby stalls wanting attention or excited about their upcoming time in the ring.

The latest Misty descendent to make an appearance is one-month old Smoke n’ Mist who bucks and romps, showing off his frisky self to the delight of the young audience. He will be the only one, pony or rider, to enter the ring who hasn’t spent many hours of practice and training preparing for the  drill team at tonight’s show as well as other appearances. The pony show goes on at 8:00 every night except Sunday and during Pony Penning there will be a 4 p.m. performance each day.

The drill team will present a special routine July 30 at the widely attended annual pony auction.

The show is the creation of Kendy Allen, horse trainer, breeder, author and at show time, mistress of ceremonies. Her daughter, Katye, is captain of the drill team and mom’s “right hand assistant” in the running of the drill team and pony centre.

Both put in countless hours during the summer at the centre and at their farm in Assawoman, on the mainland a few miles from Chincoteague, where the Allens can get away from their long days in public life and the ponies can relax in roomy pastures and paddocks.

But it is not much time off. Katye rises early each morning and mucks stalls at a neighboring boarding stable, a job she takes to bring in extra money. Later in the morning she might be giving riding lessons at the centre or training Henry, another Misty descendent, and as the days goes on she will attend to details for the night’s show. Tack has to be cleaned, floors swept, poop scooped, and before they leave every night, the carriages and displays have to be dusted.

Katye’s mother also puts in exhausting hours. During interviews for this article Kendy Allen left a note after a long night. “We had a baby born Tuesday at 5 a.m. and another Wednesday at 3 a.m. which means I was basically up two nights in a row and then here most of the day. …right now I’m pretty sleep deprived and may sneak off this afternoon for a nap.”

But at 8:00 Mrs. Allen is standing in the center of the ring, mike in hand, telling the audience what is about to take place and reminding the audience, seated only a few feet from the ring, not to get too close during the show.

For anyone who doesn’t know much about horses, it would be impossible to imagine the amount of effort it takes to train and conduct the drill team, which Mrs. Allen says is the only mounted drill team in the world made up entirely of Chincoteague ponies.

The riders, some teenagers and some in their twenties, come from various points around Chincoteague Island and nearby Virginia and Maryland communities, with some having come from as far Michigan, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Nearly all of them have five or more year’s horse experience and some have been riding with the drill team for years. Some of them own their own horses and all of them say they have a special attachment to horses, starting to ride as early as age 3.

“I have loved horses every since I can remember,” said Ashley Northam of Stockton, Md. Kenneth Allen, 20, son of Kendy, who is in the National Guard and awaiting deployment, said, “Sometimes they are the only friend you have that understands.”  About horses, Georgia Kalmoutis, 18, of nearby Gargatha said, “They are the one constant in my life.”

Mrs. Allen can easily relate to these feelings. You cannot spend time with her and fail to see that as much of a business as pony centre operations have become, her goals go far beyond the commercial undertaking. She is a teacher and that is where she started. As a school librarian for more than 20 years in Pennsylvania she has worked with students on student council, yearbook and coached girls basketball.  

Now instead of working in a school she is working in the horse business but she is still teaching.

Mrs. Allen has written four books and the entire activity program at the centre is aimed at pony education, including foal seminars and training tips, riding lessons and training opportunities.  A fifth book is being released during Pony Penning, about Ember, the Miracle Misty Pony. For more about Ember, go to www.chincoteague.com/ponycentre.

“So many of the ponies have done so much and won so much. Chincoteague ponies are just so talented and athletically gifted,” said Mrs. Allen. “It has been a joy to train them and work with them,” she said.

 If you listen to her script to her nightly audience, which she delivers without notes, you will hear the voice of a teacher, who carefully explains everything so that the youngest spectator will leave, knowing a lot more about Chincoteague ponies than they did.

 One of her students, Olivie Kruis, now a student at Lancaster Mennonite High School in Lititz, Penn., knew Mrs. Allen as her elementary school librarian. That relationship has brought her here this summer to try out for the drill team.

Most of the young men and women who ride got started in 4-H riding clubs and many of them have won riding titles either on their own or with the drill team. Mrs. Allen can point to a list of awards and titles the drill team has brought home.

“Having the drill team named World Champion Youth Team at Equitana USA in Louisville, Ky. several years ago was an experience I will never forget,” she said. “And being invited and having the team perform at the Kentucky Horse Park where they honored Misty II was quite an honor.”

As coach Mrs. Allen comes up with the music and the drill. Practice begins in the spring with riders who live within 100 miles. “One of the challenges of the drills is that every ring is a different size and shape,” she said, “so trying to make a drill that can work in all of them is a real challenge.”

“Drill is very good for riders,” said Mrs. Allen, “because they have to worry about not only their own horse and themselves, but everybody else on the team.” She added, “Sometimes you have to make a quick decision as a drill member to keep that drill going, and I am always amazed at what the team can pull off.”

A week before the pony centre opens on Easter weekend practice begins by going through the routines on foot, then with the horses. Each maneuver is gone over, with the older riders helping the new ones. As prepared as she would like to be by her opening show Ms. Allen said you never know what will happen in a ring.

“I remember one time a couple of years ago, Kenneth (her son) rode a horse into the ring that had never given any problems, and for some reason it freaked, and proceeded to buck him off, not an easy thing to do. After the show a lady came up to me and said that was so neat to see, and wondered if we did that every show.”

The riders must be 15, have a minimum of five years horse experience, ride hunt seat and western, work long hours and help with fund raising. The drill team is a non-profit enterprise. Drill team members must know a lot about Chincoteague ponies and the Misty family heritage they represent. “A genuine love of horses is a must,” said Mrs. Allen, “they must put their horse and drill team ahead of themselves. They work long hours and often don’t have time to eat when they are preparing and doing a show.”

Before moving to the Eastern Shore, the Allens ran a farm in Lancaster, Penn. There is Keith and Kendy and their three children, Kerra, Katye and Kenneth. They got their first Chincoteague pony, Misty II, in the 1980s on a vacation trip to Chincoteague. She was the granddaughter of Misty of Chincoteague fame, 13 years old and untrained. The Allens gentled her to ride and she went on to become a hunter champion. Since then they have developed a herd of about 30 Chincoteague ponies and continue to breed, raise, buy sell, and according to Ms. Allen, “always love” Chincoteague ponies.

 For 30 years she was a 4-H leader and they would take in “horseless kids who wanted to learn to ride.”  Nine years ago the Richard Conklin family of Chincoteague opened the Pony Centre on Chicken City Road. The Pony Centre horses are owned and managed by the Allen family. Their partners, Richard, Carolyn and Mark Conklin own the pony centre and the gift shop.

Veterans of the drill team, returning this year are, in addition to the captain, Katye, her brother Kenneth, Matt DesJardins of Lambertville, Mich.; Sara Miles, Pocomoke, Md.; Natalie Whealton, Chincoteague; Georgia Kiamoutis, Gargatha; Laura Hopkins, Pocomoke, Md., and Kerra Allen Johnson, New Church.

Kerra is the oldest daughter in the Allen family. She has been riding since age 3 and is now the manager and riding instructor at an Assawoman farm. She is the past captain of the drill team, a torch now passed to her younger sister, Katye. 

The newer members are twins Ashley and Shelby Northam, Stockton, Md., Crystal Kinard, Temperanceville; Amelia Monroe, Myersville, Md;  and Olivia Kruis, Lititz, Penn.

For more information go to www.chincoteague.com/ponycentre.

Mr. Boswell, a retired newsman and journalism teacher, is publisher of www.wildponytales.info, a website that covers Chincoteague and Assateague.  Kate White, an 8^th grader at Arcadia Middle School, is a staff writer for the site.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Categories: Pony Tales
Tags: