File:Coast watch (1979) (20471441280).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_1 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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"It was the only place I knew where the people were fenced in and the horses allowed to run free." —Jim Henning "It was nature's way of keeping the horses from inbreeding," Jeannetta says. Many of the Ocracoke villagers once owned one or more of this Spanish herd. Some of the horses were broken and trained for riding, plowing and pulling the carts that delivered grocery orders every Saturday, says Jeannetta. The Life Saving Service rode them to patrol the beach and haul wood washed up from shipwrecks. Each July Fourth, islanders herded the horses together, branding colts and picking out some of the older horses for sale or training. Lawton Howard, who grew up on Ocracoke and retired there 16 years ago, remembers the pennings that took place next to the island's only school. About 15 men would leave the village late on the night before the Fourth and ride to the north end of the island, Howard says. At daybreak the men would begin herding the horses southward. Some of the horses escaped roundup by swimming into the sound, Photo by Cassie Griffin Howard says. By around noon on the Fourth the men would herd the horses into the village and the pen that awaited them by the school. "There were a coupla fellas here that caught the horses with their bare hands," Howard says. "No one believes me when I tell them that. But it's true. My father, Homer Howard, was one of 'em. They would grab the horses by their mane, then throw one leg in front of the horse's legs so they wouldn't get trampled. They'd grab their nostrils and hold on until the horse was out of wind and could be roped." To break the horses, villagers would fill an old pair of pants with sand and place it on the horse's back, Howard says. Sometimes the islanders blindfolded the horses to keep them from kicking and rearing as they broke them. Or they stood the horses in water, where it was impossible for them to kick, he says. Once broken the horses are a gentle lot, says Jeannetta. "They're very
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Jim Henning chatting with a neighbor human oriented," she says. "They're highly tuned, sweet-tempered and not nervous. They'll nuzzle right up to you. A lot of the people here on Ocracoke grew up with at least one of the horses in their backyard." The horses took on a new prominence in the 1950s when Boys Life magazine discovered the Ocracoke Boy Scout troop was the only mounted troop in the country. Each scout trained and cared for his own mount. "The national publicity stirred a great deal of feeling for the horses here on the island," Jeannetta says. In 1957, when the highway was built that ran the length of the island, the horses were corralled for the first time. Until then, villagers had surrounded their yards and homes with wooden fences to keep the horses out. "It was the only place I knew where the people were fenced in and the horses allowed to run free," Jim says. After the highway was completed, the Boy Scout troop took over care of the small herd. The scouts looked after the horses until the late 1960s when the U.S. Park Service took over the care because the troop had dwindled and the expenses had become a bur- den. When the Park Service took over the horses, the herd was on the decline. At one time the herd was as low as nine horses, Jim says. Jeannetta raised three foals by bottle to keep them alive, he says. A breeding problem had developed. The remaining stallion and three of the mares were not compatible mates. The result was foals born with a condi- tion called hemolytic anemia. The mare's milk contained antibodies that destroyed the red blood cells in the foals, which died soon after birth. Dr. Thomas Bruce, director of the state's Animal Disease Diagnositic Laboratory in Edenton, says the dis- ease is not uncommon. Bruce says in- breeding contributes to the disease's occurence, but is not the cause. To solve the problem, an Andalusian stallion was brought in for breeding purposes. Since the stallion's arrival three healthy foals have been born, Jim says. While Bruce studied the horses health problems, Dr. William Stabler, a Houston, Miss., veterinarian and an examiner for the Spanish Mustang Registry, has been studying the horses'

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