![]() He called the horse "as tough as pine knots." She found a colorful report from famed naturalist John James Audubon. She uncovered photographs of the Coast Guard riding Marsh Tackies on the beaches of Hilton Head Island as they patrolled for Nazi U-boats. She also found references to United States presidents riding Marsh Tackies on Lowcountry hunting trips. They were the original pickup truck: All-terrain, reliable and pulling more than their weight. They simply stop, assess the situation, sort of roll out of it on their backs, and move on. Even if a Marsh Tacky gets stuck in pluff mud, the oozy base of the marsh that can behave like quicksand, a Marsh Tacky doesn’t panic. She heard how folks used to say if a horse couldn't handle the water, it wasn't a Tacky. For a horse, they are considered low-maintenance and don't require expensive feed or even shoes. They took the children to school and the family to church. Tackies plowed the fields for the planting. She heard how most Gullah families used to have a Marsh Tacky tied to a tree in their fields. No one wrote down this information, she said, so it took a lot of interviews on family farms to produce it. A hundred of them came from one farm in Ridgeland, run by D.P. There were only 150 horses on this first list. It's called a studbook or breed registry. Josh Morgan, Greenville Newsīeranger created the first official record of all the remaining Marsh Tackies and their lineage. and that's pretty handy, especially in a time where we're facing climate change and looking for animals that are adaptable."īy studying videos of the Marsh Tacky trot, a program at Mississippi State University determined the horse does, in fact, have a unique gait. "They are just an irreplaceable resource," Beranger said. Today's Marsh Tacky can handle the heat and muck here unlike any other horse. They continued to evolve and adapt to the muggy and muddy conditions of this region. In the centuries since, the Marsh Tacky remained isolated on the sea islands and in the Lowcountry. More Spanish horses came to the colonies during the Seven Years War in the mid-18th century. Others came by way of the Native American deerskin trade route that went to Florida, where South Carolina Native Americans would pick up horses for the trip back home. They survived Spanish shipwrecks and failed colonies on the South Carolina coast. ![]() She believes the modern Marsh Tackies developed from several sources. The DNA tests, however, proved the horses were still here, were a unique breed and hailed originally from Spain. They resemble the Banker horse of the Outer Banks of North Carolina and the Florida Cracker Horse, both with Spanish ancestry and histories that began during the Colonial Era.īeranger said she and other experts worried that by the 21st century, the Marsh Tacky might have disappeared, partly because it had been crossbred with other types of horses through the years. When they are born, old-timers say that Marsh Tackies look like they have two front legs coming out of the same hole. They have narrower chests, too, which helps keep their bodies cool. The horses look like smaller versions of Spanish Mustangs, standing at no more than 14.2 hands or around five feet. Shannon Hawkins walks Bird, a Marsh Tacky Horse, on his farm Wednesday, April 15, 2021. ![]() They shipped the horsehair to the University of Spain at Cordoba for DNA testing. ![]() Jeannette Beranger and the Livestock Conservancy, a nonprofit organization focused on the preservation and promotion of rare breeds, spent three years - and 20,000 miles on the road - collecting hair samples from horses that appeared to look like a Marsh Tacky. This can lead to increased chances for such health issues as genetic defects and disease-resistance problems.īoth Simpson and Hawkins are members of a new generation of Marsh Tacky advocates, joining the cause about a decade after research confirmed the existence and the background of the breed in 2008. There are so few Marsh Tackies left, so inbreeding entangles the branches of the family trees. His birth has introduced much-needed genetic diversity. Sprite and Bird are not related at all, said Molly Simpson, who cares for Sprite and Hawk on her family's Anderson land. Hawk's importance begins with his parents, a mare named Sprite and a stallion named Bird, and the two people who own them. Clover and her mother Flaca eat breakfast at the Daufuskie Marsh Tacky Society Wednesday, April 28, 2021.
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