Update on “Pretty Boy”, presumed Marsh Tacky Gelding Rescued in November

You remember the nail-biting moments of rescuing this presumed Marsh Tacky gelding in November, right? And you saw the pics of his rainy day rescue from Louisiana to South Carolina. I want to thank Ashley Tims for her transport skills and dedication to helping save this horse by driving to Louisiana and back. Jodie Shirley, a Marsh Tacky breeder, has opened her farm to him where he is slowly adjusting to his new life.

Pretty Boy is quite fond of the baby goats born in his pasture and is protective of their mother. He  is nickering with the rest of the herd at dinner time and is beginning to tolerate being touched. One of his most favorite pastimes is to sleep in the hay with the goats. It is going to take some time for him to trust people again.

So far everyone that has come in contact with him agrees that he does have the characteristics and temperament of a Marsh Tacky. I want to thank everyone who has pulled together to get him out of a bad situation – through donations, networking and providing support while logistics were arranged.  We are waiting until he is more settled to take hair samples for DNA testing.

I believe that Pretty Boy will become a trusting horse again given time. His story brings the goodness of people to the forefront despite what has befallen him. I have been overwhelmed at the support from Marsh Tacky enthusiasts and owners who did not hesitate to help although there were no papers involved in proving his authenticity. It has shown me that there are many people who believe in the preservation of the South Carolina State Heritage Horse, the Marsh Tacky and want to see the breed survive and safe.

(C) Marsh Tacky Tales 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Divine Horse invited me to present Beach Race Champion, A Marsh Tacky Tale on Saturday October 6 to help celebrate Literacy!!!

Completely last minute invite to The Divine Horse  on Saturday! I absolutely love being able to attend local events to promote the SC State Heritage Horse. It’s been a few years since I have been out to the elementary schools in York County. I met so many wonderful people on Saturday and enjoyed conversing about one of the best kept secrets of South Carolina, the Marsh Tacky Horse.

A great big Thank You to 

The Divine Horse is currently carrying the Beach Race Champion, A Marsh Tacky Tale. Please stop by for your copy.

Please purchase books through this Amazon link and help us be able to get to more schools.

Saving the Marsh Tacky Horse through education, one book at a time.

Marsh Tacky Tales is working towards a few other books, working titles are Mariah, and The Colonels Little Tacky and a few more. Our original joint research has discovered incredibly rich stories about these unique horses from the Low-country to the Piedmont and Foothills of South Carolina and we are excited to share them!

(c) Marsh Tacky Tales 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Free Breyer Horse Paint Party at The Divine Horse

The Divine Horse is hosting a FREE Breyer Horse Painting Party, Sunday August 26th from 1:00 pm to 3:00 pm.  Reservation required.

Come in and visit during Summerfest on August 24th & 25th and sign up to reserve your spot for the Breyer Horse Painting Party!! This event is the first of the Weekend Breyer Fundays to be offered. Pal-o-mine, the Breyer pony will be there for pictures as well!

Kathy Holbert is excited to bring the World of Breyer Horses to her customers. Now that The Divine Horse has a Brick & Mortar presence, Holbert decided to choose Breyer as a new product line. She said the decision to carry Breyer wasn’t hard to make. She enjoyed Breyer horses as a child and wanted to pass her Breyer models on to her daughter, so it was an easy decision. Black Beauty and PVF, Peace of Mind are her two favorite models.

Stablemates, Christmas Breyer models, Christmas Breyer model ornaments, and of course new Breyer models are only a part of the Breyer line being presented. Don’t forget Justify, the 2018 Triple Crown Winner, is one of the new models Breyer is working on and will be available in October. The Divine Horse is awaiting their second shipment of Breyer horses that will double their inventory. The model of Snowman and the book about his life, “The Eighty Dollar Champion”  will be in the next shipment.  Holbert already has Black Beauty and Little Prince story and model available in store. Holbert is glad to bring the Breyer model horses to more people who will cherish their memories of collecting and playing with the models as she did as a child.

(c) MarshTackyTales 2018

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Divine Horse

“Community is such an important part of what we do. We want you to feel special, more like a boutique than tack shop. Want you to feel special because you are our customer. We want you to be your best at your sport.” – Entrepreneur, Kathy Holbert

Glitter Rainbow Pony Stickers, Ribbon Boards, de-wormers, liniment, unicorns and Pegasus, saddles and tack, Oh my!  A brick & mortar business set to steal the hearts of little girls and indulge the practical equestrian, The Divine Horse, is having their Grand Opening, Saturday August 18, 2018 at 10:00 am in York, South Carolina.  Kathy Holbert, owner and equestrian entrepreneur is embarking on her own Cinderella story. Three years ago in Houston, Texas she operated the The Divine Horse web-based business and mobile service for events. Fast forward to a year ago when her husbands job transfer led them to South Carolina, Holbert has since been asked to open a brick & mortar version of The Divine Horse on North Congress Street, York. Holbert says she never would have believed that possible, but God put all the right people together at the right time to make this happen. 

Over the last fifty-plus years women have become the predominant purchasers of equines and equine products. Holbert is changing the look of equestrian retail and boosting purchasing power by fulfilling the need to touch, feel and try on product. The Divine Horse includes a boutique atmosphere by providing knowledgeable persons that assist with proper product selection and usage.

Today many parents are becoming involved in equestrian sports and recreation due to their children’s activities, especially mother and daughter combinations. “The ability to cater to mother and child and to dress them readily is an advantage,” says Holbert, “This entails lifestyle changes.” Holbert believes this new dynamic requires a retail convenience factor which has not been previously available. The on-line and catalog purchasing venues provided accessibility, but limited knowledge. General feed and tack stores had limited product and limited customer service. The Divine Horse offers a boutique solution in brick & mortar, mobile and web-based sales.

The Divine Horse is the first retailer to carry BuckWild products, an early carrier of Kim Black Horse Creations, and Knicker Kisses Horse Treats! Holbert is constantly on the look-out for unique products from the practical to the whimsical for her customers. An art gallery is also featured in the boutique carrying Moose Pants Studio , artist Jo Zeller Quentin, from Houston,Texas and they hope to expand to local artists here. Holbert believes the success of her web-based and mobile business is based on providing excellent product knowledge and product availability. She believes that communicating product knowledge to equestrians, whether new and aspiring or fulfilling the needs of seasoned equestrians is the primary goal in customer service.

Now that The Divine Horse has a brick & mortar facility, they are able to become even more involved in the community than before. The Divine Horse mobile business is the primary vendor for the North Carolina and South Carolina Special Olympics, the have also participated in Carolina Equine Rescue and Assistance (CERA) Celebration of the Horse event. The heart and soul of their business is the local community; being involved the local circuits, barns, events and groups is their primary focus. The Divine Horse provides a service for equine professionals where they act as a liaison between the instructor/trainer and equestrian student by creating a tailored supply-list to complement the equestrian experience. The Divine Horse maintains those products in store for quick and simple purchase experiences.  They even assist groups in logos, embroidery and t-shirts! This Friday August 17, 2018 The Divine Horse will be hosting a private event, Equine Professional Networking Event from 4-8 PM. All types of equestrian professionals are invited there will be food, beverages and giveaways.All pictures are credit to The Divine Horse.

© MarshTackyTales 2018

 

 

Dawn Roth, Dressagemanship™

“Helping one horse and human together at a time.” –Dawn Roth

Dawn Roth’s desire to create a holistic approach that embraces the relationship between rider and horse created Dressagemanship™, a combination of dressage, classical in hand work and foundational horsemanship. Dressagemanship™ is a training program that is for any equestrian discipline: Western; English; Eventing; Endurance; and trail riding.  Roth has likened her program to “yoga for horses” encouraging balance, energy and body work for everyday horses and riders.

Mutual understanding and respect between horse and human is what Roth strives to promote in her sessions.  One-on-one or small group work is preferred to develop the mutual language of the horse and human in Dressagemanship™. Roth says that the practice of consistency and fairness develop the lightness and softness of the horse that results in confidence between the human and horse.

Roth designs her sessions around how the human and the horse learn.  They may not be equally matched when beginning the process, but through development and understanding each receives the guidance needed to succeed. Consistency and flexibility are paramount to gauging the progress of the pair. Identifying progress comes in many forms, especially if the horse and human progress at different rates.  The horse may understand quicker than the human and vice versa. Roth will use a variety of techniques, such as helping the human gain understanding through the use of another horse or keeping a quickly progressing horse interested until its human counterpart catches up.

Roth believes that listening and learning how to listen are keys to success in this program. She would like readers to know she is dedicated to the process. She says, “I want clients to fall in love with the journey of the partnership. I am committed to guiding them to be the best they can be and being the best I can be to share the journey.”

Roth Dressagemanship™ offers distance learning as well as small sessions and one-on-one sessions. Please connect with the following links: Website: www.dressagemanship.com

Click on the logo for Dressagemanship™ on Facebook

© MarshTackyTales 2018

Facebook for Dressagemanship: https://www.facebook.com/dressagemanship

The Line in the Sand

Please take a moment to watch the trailer produced by Terry Windell/MELT, LLC.

A few years ago Terry interviewed me about the children’s book I authored and Jackie McFadden illustrated for the documentary. The documentary is still in process, here is the trailer. You can purchase your copy of Beach Race Champion, featuring equestrian jockey Brittany Stevens, riding Marsh Tacky Molly to victory on the sandy beach. Please check out the Facebook Page for the trailer. Marsh Tacky Horses still need your support!

Watch the trailer here:

(c) MarshTackyTales 2018

Furusiyya, or Horsemanship Literature Interview with Hylke Hettema

Hylke Hettema, is a Phd. candidate at Leiden University, Netherlands. Her main focus of study is the connection between the horse and Arab identity. Her research includes translating Arabic, studying 19th century texts and art related to the Arabian horse. Hettema explains, “Exploring the narratives based on both Western and Eastern memories throughout history will lead to a better understanding of the situation in which the concept of a desert horse came to life.”

 She is currently presenting at the World Conference for Middle Eastern Studies 2018 (WOCMES 2018) conference at the University of Seville, Spain. Check out her blog Remembering a Desert Horse. Hettema will also be presenting at Equine History Collective  (EHC) in November 2018.

Hettema notes that it is commonly held that early furūsiyya literature  (horsemanship literature) is the record of a pre-Islamic horse culture. Those medieval Arabic works on horses have been the base for the memory of a medieval Arab horse culture, and that memory is subsequently used to justify the existence, breed standard and phenotype of the Arabian horse today.

Hettema has always loved horses and became a breeder of Arabian horses when she moved to the Middle East.  Her fascination with history led her to ask questions that the breeding community could not adequately answer; breeding and oral history are very sensitive subjects in the equine world. Hettema used her skills as an academic to search for information about the origin of the breed, she soon realized,  “…the actual titles included in the body of medieval Arabic works on horses were not written during the pre-Islamic period, we need to question the current assumptions that the Arabian horse breed was created and actively bred by pre-Islamic Arabs.”

(c) Marsh Tacky Tales 2018

 

 

 

Breyerfest 2018, July 13-15

Breyerfest 2018 is being held at the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington KY this weekend.

In 2013 the Marsh Tacky Breyer Horse model was released. Two Step was a limited run of 1,200 horses available only at Breyerfest 2013.

According to Identify Your Breyer website if you have this model it will be stamped on the belly with “Breyerfest 2013”. Model number 711162 is a solid dun with primitive markings.

 

 

 

photo credit Jackie McFadden

Ten years ago Breyer became interested in the rare breed horses of the East Coast. The Columbia Mall in Columbia, SC hosted an equine gathering in 2008 of horse breeds to bring attention to their search. Like nearly every Marsh Tacky event we attended, it was a blustery day, threatening wild weather. David Grant brought his stallion, D.P, to the event. David Grant runs Carolina Marsh Tacky Outdoors. He trains, breeds and sells Marsh Tacky Horses.

Pal-O-Mine was there to greet everyone and have pictures taken.

photo credit Patricia Stafford

(c) Marsh Tacky Tales 2018

 

 

 

 

 

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Horse Enthusiast? Horse History Buff? I encourage you to follow the Equine History Collective . Check out their  #ShelfieSundays for new reads. Upcoming Interviews with Equine Scholars Hylke Hettama, Miriam Bibby,  and the founder of the Equine History collective, Katrin Boniface.

via #SourceSaturday: The Secret History of the Mongols

How to find the EHC…

 

 

WordPress

Facebook

LinkedIn Groups

 

 

meme found on FB, because everything has a source!

(C) Marsh Tacky Tales 2018

Featured Fine Artist, Keri Keene July 2018

Who: Keri Keene, fine arts pastelist

When & Where:  http://www.kerikeene.com

August 2018 Main Street Art Gallery  2036 14th Ave #103, Vero Beach, FL 32960

Palm trees with cattle scattered under them is the Florida Keri Keene knows and wants to share. She is a Florida Native and is taking an active stance in preserving Florida History. Her most recent body of work focuses on agricultural history, an often forgotten history of Florida. Non-traditional education in art and a therapeutic need to express emotion on canvas or paper led to her discovery of not only being an artist, but an artist who has a message.

Keene has seen that her work often introduces people to the rare Florida Cracker Horses and Cracker Cattle that helped build the Florida economy. She feels that most tourists come to Florida for the beaches and the entertainment. They do not get to indulge in the rich agricultural history Florida has to offer. Keene focuses on the unique landscape Florida has and the history behind it, featuring orange groves and ranch animals.

Growing up in North Florida, her father had a ranch populated with horses, cattle, dogs, pigs and cats.  She has always been drawn to the beauty of animals. Preserving a childhood she now realizes was much rarer than she realized, Keri has begun painting those Florida Cracker Horses and Cracker Cattle whose “Cracker” names came from the sound of the whips cracking, encouraging the cattle to leave the pines, palms and scrubby terrain.

After reading the book, A Land Remembered, which mentioned Marsh Tacky Horses, Keene wanted to have a Marsh Tacky Horse. Forever Florida, a ranch in St. Cloud, FL arranged for her to be able to photograph both the Florida Cracker Horses and Cracker Cattle in a semi-feral state. Forever Florida also provided an opportunity for her to ride Florida Cracker Horses.

“I love to have followers on my social media and visitors to my website” -Keri Keene

 https://www.instagram.com/kerikeeneart/
 https://www.facebook.com/KeriKeeneArt/
 http://www.kerikeene.com
 If anyone has questions about my art they can reach me at kerikeeneart@yahoo.com 

(C) Marsh Tacky Tales

Artists, Activists and Historians- Beginning in July

Did you know that there is an entire group of people who study Equine History? Or that there are people who put their passion for preservation into Art? Or that grass roots conservation for rare equine breeds can be an activist position? Did you know that Equines are one of the most researched animals and most extensively DNA mapped?

These are a just a few of the the things I have been learning over my years of research into the real history of the Marsh Tacky Horse. A new and constant feature for Marsh Tacky Tales will be monthly interviews with Artists, Activists and Historians. Each one presented has brought significant insight to my research, even if they are not directly involved with the rare horse breed, the Marsh Tacky.

Multidisciplinary research takes us places we may never have thought to go. Investigating the South Carolina boll weevil, Revolutionary War sites, long hours searching for just the right index to discover a lost work and consults with archeologists, linguists and scientists are part of that work. And artists.  You may have noticed (if you have been following Marsh Tacky Tales on FB) that I have been posting some artwork as well as other links to preserving our wild mustangs. I had no idea that all these different things reached out and touched Marsh Tacky Horses when I began this blog.

Now that I know, I want to share these remarkable findings with you. If you love horses, history, and interconnectedness please stay tuned – I am interviewing many of the wonderful people I have met along this journey of the Natural History of the Marsh Tacky just for you.

(C) Marsh Tacky Tales 2018

A Tale of Thankfulness and Giving

I hope that everyone has experienced the warmth and love of family or friends today. If you are truly lucky, you will have been able to experience both! I want to thank each and every donor that has helped us reach half our goal in bailing the presumed Marsh Tacky from the Bastrop, LA kill pen. I understand that many of my readers have strong opinions about purchasing a horse from a kill pen, regardless of its breed or paperwork.

This is where my REALLY BIG thank you comes in. Many of you donated because one of a possible rare breed horse is one too many to see shipped to slaughter. I am thankful for your help. Still others donated because I asked, because you believed in what Marsh Tacky Tales does, or even some of you because you believe in me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Please don’t forget this horse or that we need to raise $400 more dollars to complete his bail as you go shopping on Black Friday. Every little bit helps. $5, $10, $15 … Every bit gets him closer to a permanent home. Marsh Tacky Tales will cover the expense of parentage DNA testing him and do work towards verifying his breed status.

Click HERE for the GoFundMe to donate. If you prefer to donate another way, please e-mail me at staffordp.writer@gmail.com

Once his bail is made we will keep you updated on his status and progress. Remember, there are only approximately 500 Marsh Tacky Horses alive.

#3533 is currently pulled from the ship list. His board is $15 a day until pick up. $400 is left to raise for the balance of his “bail”. Presumed Marsh Tacky gelding.

(C) Marsh Tacky Tales 2018

 

UPDATE: HORSE IS SAFE FOR TONIGHT!! PLEASE help us raise the remaining funds to bring him back to SC !! Urgent!! Possible Rare Breed Marsh Tacky to ship to slaughter on Monday

Good Morning,

Update: $422 more and we can get him home!

Grateful for all the help so far!! Thank you for keeping him off the truck Monday evening! He has home & Transport, anything over the $422 goes to gas for transport.

I am reaching out again for support to get this possible Marsh Tacky Horse pulled from the kill pen. He is set to ship on Monday and we haven’t raised half of his bail yet to keep him off the truck. You can donate directly using PayPal to stanleybros.greg@gmail.com please put #3533 and your name in the to section.

 

You can go to this GoFundMe and funds will be sent as soon as we reach $500 so he does not ship.

Watch the video here.

Unconfirmed Marsh Tacky gelding in danger of being shipped to Slaughterhouse.

Wow.

Please help us help a possible un-documented South Carolina State Heritage Horse, the Marsh Tacky.

Estimated $500 for transport (cost of gas)  and purchase price is $1,100.

Let me tell you what is going on and I am going to hope that all of you Molly Fans and Marsh Tacky Enthusiasts and Educators are willing to lend a hand.  This horse in the video below was brought by an individual to Bastrop, LA for sale.

He was delivered without papers or registration status.Everyone knows papers can get lost and foals not get registered although they came from registered parents.

He is 5 years old (old enough to be from the Marsh Tacky auction held a few years back) and has 90 days of training according to the video.

I have someone who is willing to transport him back to his home state, South Carolina, where there is already a home offer available for him. Marsh Tacky Tales will cover parentage testing cost for this horse. Our fundraising goal will be to cover purchase price. Anything over will go to board/transport.

*Please help us help a possible un-documented South Carolina State Heritage Horse, the Marsh Tacky*

He is tag# 3533, Marsh Tacky Horse (no papers, registration unverified) 14.3 grulla gelding, 5 years old, 90 days under saddle.

Please Donate through this GoFundMe account

*if bail is not reached and horse has shipped to slaughter, all funds will be returned*

 

 

#EqHist2018: Kit Heintzman on “Whose horses matter?”

#EqHist2018

Equine History Collective

All month long we will be featuring speaker’s abstracts for the upcoming Equine History Conference: Why Equine History Matters. Register now!

Whose horses matter?
Kit Heintzman, Harvard University

   Thousands of sick horses were brought to the École Royale Vétérinaire de Paris since it opened in 1766 to receive treatment, but few of them were ever referred by name in medical writing. This paper compares three genres of medical writing among eighteenth-century French veterinarians during the first 25 years of the hospital’s existence: the published account of treatment interventions, the hospital’s individualized treatment report, and the autopsy record. Such works reveal distinct ways of fashioning the meaning and importance of animal death in the early decades of state-supported of veterinary medicine. In the published reports, animal death was reduced to mere numbers, and became a mechanism to convey information about the state of veterinary practice, but not about the animals…

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#EqHist2018: Abbie Harlow on “The Use of Burros and Mules in Defining Race”

#EqHist2018

Equine History Collective

All month long we will be featuring speaker’s abstracts for the upcoming Equine History Conference: Why Equine History Matters. Register now!

Rather Risk His Life in a Carriage Than Suffer on A Mule’s Back: The Use of Burros and Mules in Defining Race
Abbie Harlow, Arizona State University

       “As draught beasts, beasts of burden, and for field labor, [mules] surpass any other animal in the world; and the use of them allows the noble horse to be applied to his own proper use … and not to field labor or the rude and sordid drudgery to which he is too often degraded.”[1]This 1857 article, “Mules and Mule-Breeding,” argued for the use of mules as draft animals in place of horses, partially because mules were better suited to field work, but also to remove “the noble horse” from labor demeaning to their status. Newspaper articles, breeding handbooks…

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#EqHist2018: Lonneke Delpeut on “The Image of the Horse in Ancient Egypt”

Equine History Collective

All month long we will be featuring speaker’s abstracts for the upcoming Equine History Conference: Why Equine History Matters. Register now!

The Image of the Horse in Ancient Egypt: A Source of Information and a Piece of Art Lonneke Delpeut, Leiden University

    The horse was introduced into ancient Egyptian society around the beginning of the New Kingdom (ca. 1600 BC). From the beginning of the 18th dynasty, we see the horse depicted in funerary temples belonging to the pharaohs as well as in superstructures of private tombs of Egypt’s elite. My research is about the two-dimensional depictions of the horse, namely the difference between the image as a source of information compared to the image as a piece of art. Every image contains a certain amount of information, and can for example tell us about how the horse is used in Egyptian society, what the Egyptians knew about…

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