Missy of Chincoteague

Sisters Elizabeth (left) and Delaney Robinson saved up their money and recently bought their own wild pony from Chincoteague. Page Dowdy/Chesterfield Observer Four years ago, Delaney and Elizabeth Robinson stood for the first time in knee-high marshland with their parents, waiting expectantly for the beginning of the annual Wild Pony Swim from Assateague Island to Chincoteague Island.

Then and there, the young sisters made a pact that one day they would buy and tame a wild Chincoteague pony of their own. And after saving up their money, the girls made that reality come true this year on July 28 – with a dramatic winning bid at the 85th Annual Pony Auction, and some last-minute help from a kindly elderly benefactor.

“She’s so cute! I couldn’t believe she was ours!” enthuses Delaney, 9, who will be entering the fourth grade at Spring Run Elementary. The Robinson sisters’ new pony, Little Miss Chincoteague (Missy for short), is a 9-week-old chestnut filly, about 3 feet tall and 150 pounds.

“This is what they wanted since the first time they saw them,” says their father, Joey, a general contractor. He and his wife, Stefanie, a Chesterfield school teacher, told the girls that “the only way they could get one is if they saved up their own money, and we set up a bank account called the pony fund.”

The Robinson family already had one horse and a pony at their home off River Road in the Winterpock area, but Elizabeth and Delaney were taken in by the romance of the annual Wild Pony Swim, and they wanted to buy and tame and train their own wild pony, just like in Marguerite Henry’s classic 1947 book “Misty of Chincoteague.”

The Wild Pony Swim and Auction is held every year on the last Wednesday and Thursday of July. “Salt Water Cowboys” round up wild ponies from the Assateague Island wildlife preserve and herd them across the channel between the islands, then parade them through town, where they are penned in the Chincoteague fairgrounds awaiting auction. All proceeds benefit the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department.

“We’ve been saving for two years, just like Christmas and birthday money, and if we mowed the lawn, we saved that money and stuff,” says Elizabeth, 14, who will be a freshman at Cosby High. By this year’s Pony Swim and Auction, the girls had amassed $650.

In recent years, average ponies have sold for around $2,000 to $3,000 at the Eastern Shore event in Accomack County, so “we thought we were in the clear. We thought we were safe,” says Joey Robinson with a laugh. But with the economy being how it’s been, this year many ponies were selling for as little as $500 to $700. “We were like, ‘Oh, no, we’re in trouble!’” says Joey Robinson.

While they watched the auction and waited to bid, the Robinsons struck up a conversation with an elderly man from Maryland sitting in front of them. He told them how he had gotten a Chincoteague pony for his granddaughter years ago and how much she enjoyed it.

Soon the sisters saw the plain chestnut pony and decided that was the pony they wanted, even if it lacked the white spot pattern typically associated with Chincoteague ponies. Bidding opened at $300 and rose in $25 increments. About five bidders initially entered the fray. After bidding reached $500, it was down to the Robinson sisters and an adult bidder on the far side of the arena. Bidding reached $650, “and we were out of money,” Elizabeth recalls. “That was all we saved for.”

That was when the elderly gentleman in front of them dug in his pocket and gave the girls another $25. In a dramatic last-minute twist worthy of a modern-day “Misty of Chincoteague” sequel, local TV news cameras zoomed in as the redheaded Robinson sisters won the diminutive filly for $675.

In the whirl and excitement, the Robinsons never even had a chance to ask the man his name. “I thought it was really nice of him,” says Elizabeth, “because we didn’t even know him at all.”

“They normally go for a lot more money. I thought this was something that would still be down the road…It was exciting, but scary,” says the girls’ mom, Stefanie. For one thing, since the family hadn’t planned on getting a pony that year, they had to scramble to find a way to get the pony home. Luckily, they were able to pay a family from Georgia to carry the pony back to Chesterfield on their way to bringing their own new wild pony home. “They got a boy colt, and we’ve been corresponding with them most every day on what each of us is doing.”

It will be another two years before the little pony is large enough to be ridden, but they will enter her in horse shows in the meantime. For now, the Robinson sisters have been reading aloud to Missy of Chincoteague and petting the pony so she gets used to hearing their voices and becomes acclimated to people. One good thing is wild ponies “adapt pretty quickly the younger they are,” Stefanie Robinson says. Her girls are “doing pretty good” with Missy, she says. “They like to handle her. We’re still trying to be a little cautious because she still is of a wild nature. We handle her most every day. They’re pretty excited. We got a book on training foals, and we’ve been reading it together and trying some of the things in the book.”

“We give her carrots and apples and horse treats; she likes those, too,” says Elizabeth. “She wouldn’t let us go near her at all for the first day. She was really scared because she was away from her mom and everything the first day. Now she’ll come right up to us…She’ll go and lay down right by your feet.”