Wild Stallions $0.00

In late August and September of 2004 I spent 7 weeks camping out in a tent on Assateague Island, east of Maryland and Virginia. On the first day that I arrived and checked in to the park, little did I know then what the next 7 weeks would hold in store for me. I spent the nights sleeping in a tent, and when I could, the days hiking thru the woods and surrounding marshlands observing and photographing the wild horses, affectionately called "ponies". The ancestors to these "ponies" arrived on Assateague island hundreds of years ago when a Spanish galleon carrying them sank in a hurricane and a few of the horses were able to swim to shore. They have survived here on there own ever since. A few days after I arrived, the skies darkened, the wind began to howl and the heavens let forth with nonstop torrential rain that lasted almost 30 days straight. Photography was totally out of the question. Day after day I would get up to a pouring rain, get out of the tent, and observe and follow the small herds of horses grazing just to the north of the Bayside Campground. During this time it seemed to take forever for the eyes of Hurricane Jean, Francis and Ivan, (twice) to pass directly overhead. Sleeping soundly at night in my tent was out of the question as gale force winds ripped thru the trees around me. I just couldn't get the thought out of my head that I might be flattened any second by a falling pine tree, and the water inside my tent, coming up past my ears on a few nights as I lay down, took a while getting used too; but during the day I thrived on this kind of weather and looked forward to being alone with the ponies and following them on their daily routines. During the long hours and many days of observing these two stallions and their mares, I could tell that it was just a matter of time before tempers flared. And then one morning I woke to find the skies clear and the wind light, and I hurriedly packed my camera bag and set forth along the grassy marsh to find the Stallions and their mares. An hour later I found both Stallions and their mares grazing along the same stretch of narrow river, separated by only a few hundred yards. Ignoring the nearby sign that said, "No Trespassing, $500.00 fine for approaching horses", I began to move closer. Inside, I could feel that something special was about to happen and I kept my eye glued to the cameras viewfinder. A short while later I watched as one of the mares of the Brown Stallion began to walk towards the group of mares belonging to the White Stallion. As the Brown Stallion grazed, unaware of what was happening, this female trotted into the other group. When he looked up and took notice, he began to run after her. The White Stallion, fully aware of what was happening ran out to intercept him and they met halfway. Nose to nose they faced each other, each apparently sizing the other up, and then they began to rear and kick and viciously aim their bites toward the others throats. Occasionally they would run and kick each other then separate themselves by a hundred feet or more, catch their breath then come running towards each other at a full gallop, neither one veering to the left or right. Just before impact they would launch into the air, each one trying to knock the other to the ground. When one went down the other would stand on top and pound away with his hooves, trying to inflict a fatal blow. The impact of the hooves, with sounds and reverberations like cannons, filled the air around us. They fought non stop for almost 2 hours and what I thought would be to the death. The mares paid no attention to this incredible scene taking place before my eyes, and continued to move and graze down river, away from this commotion. In the end, the mares separated back into their original groups and as they moved further down river, were approached by a smaller stallion hoping to take advantage of the situation that was unfolding before me. When he was finally noticed by these two Stallions, they immediately quit fighting and chased him off, rounded up their mares and stood eyeing one another from a short distance apart, neither one approaching the other. It seemed that a draw had been reached. As I stood and watched, realizing what I had just witnessed was a once in a lifetime experience, I noticed a quick flash of sunlight reflecting from my left and realized a ranger had witnessed the whole thing and was watching me thru binoculars. Later that night when I finally arrived at my tent, I found the ranger waiting for me and I expected to receive the fine. When he asked if I was the photographer that was out there and I said I was, his exact words to me were, " I hope you captured that on film because you don't realize what you just saw. I have been here for 23 years and I have never seen stallions fight like that before". Then he mentioned that he could give me a fine for trespassing and I told him that I would happily make him some prints and send them to him if he didn't, and the deal was struck. After this day I never saw those two stallions or their mares again, though I looked repeatedly for the next two weeks. I came to miss them. The next morning when I awoke, the skies had turned cloudy, the rain had returned and Hurricane Ivan was hitting me again for the second time. A month after I returned home I contacted the ranger to see if either one of the two stallions had died from the injuries they had received, and he said he didn't think so as no buzzards had been seen circling overhead. A few weeks later he called me up and said he had found the same stallions and their mares. The Brown Stallion had moved his mares 12 miles to the north, and the White Stallion had moved his mares 18 miles to the south and swam to a different island. They were about as far apart from each other as they could possibly be. I will never forget what I witnessed and was blessed to see on that very special day, and how I felt inside knowing that even though what I had seen had been going on for thousands of years, few in their lifetime would ever witness, much less capture on film. Two wild and beautiful stallions of two different colors, the same size, stature and attitude; evenly matched and powerful and locked in battle, to the death if need be, to retain their mares and for the right to pass on their genes to a future generation. All this in a land seemingly untouched by time.