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Mount Rogers Ponies To Be Auctioned Off On Sept. 26

RUGBY, Va. – Rounding up the Mount Rogers Ponies each year can be tough.
These wild-running animals can go almost anywhere, crossing thousands of acres of topsy-turvy terrain. The little ones hide like dogs beneath brush. And even larger ponies can easily be lost when fog envelops the rocky ridges of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area.
“It’s getting harder to get them up there in the brush,” said Harold Street, a founding member of the Wilburn Ridge Pony Association. “The brush is growing up so quick. It’s hard to find them – see them.”
Since the mid-1970s, it’s been a task for Street and other members of the Wilburn Ridge Pony Association to take care of these animals.
With an annual campout in September, volunteer teams of horseback riders vie to catch the wild-running stallions and mares for a veterinary inspection – and possible sale.
“We hope to auction off 50 ponies this year,” said Street, the association’s former treasurer, now in his 80s and living in Wytheville, Va.
This year’s auction starts at 2 p.m. Sept. 26 at the Grayson Highlands Fall Festival, held at Grayson Highlands State Park near Rugby, Va.
Here, yearlings sell for as little as $50 or as high as $600, Street said, and the auction’s proceeds help pay for the veterinary care of the remaining animals and to support the Rugby Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department.

IN THE WILD
At an elevation of about 4,500 feet, as many as 150 ponies live in the wilds of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area and the adjacent Grayson Highlands State Park.
Some trot along the Appalachian Trail inside the state park boundaries. Over the hills but not too far away, more ponies run wild on the far side of a stone-capped peak called Wilburn Ridge.
Most bear shaggy coats with long, flowing manes.
“They are Shetland Ponies – most of them,” Street said. “They’re small.”
In winter, members of the Wilburn Ridge Pony Association help supplement their diet with a few bales of hay and some salt.
During warmer months, these animals fend for themselves – gathering in fields and searching for food in wind-blown grass.
Mount Rogers Ponies nibble at what grows between rocks. But, they have also been known to sometimes nibble at the heels of hikers – and even swipe backpacks.
“They may destroy backpacks, looking for food,” said Harvey Thompson, the manager of Grayson Highlands State Park.
So Thompson has put out the word: Please do not feed the ponies.
“We don’t want them to get them accustomed to being fed,” Thompson said. “It’s not good to give ponies Snickers bars, because it messes up their digestive tract. They are wild ... And we encourage hikers not to feed them for their personal safety.”

‘TO GRAZE’
Mount Rogers Ponies graze in open areas – or “balds” – the remnants of grand-scale logging, conducted a century ago. Here, in the early 1900s, lumberjacks slashed virgin forests for timber, later hauling logs to distant markets on narrow gauge railroad lines.
By 1966, when the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area was established, grass and small brush had reclaimed the area’s rocky ground.
“The ponies were brought there in the spring [of 1974] to graze along with cattle,” Thompson said, “and some of the ancestors of that process just kind of stayed on the mountain.”
Mount Rogers Ponies live in three separate herds – with some at the state park; more at “The Scales” area of Pine Mountain; and the rest near Rhododendron Gap.
“We shoot for about 30 on the park and about 90 in the Mount Rogers area,” Thompson said.
Still, when the ponies first arrived in 1974, they had a problem: People would shoot them.
For the last 18 years, Thompson has reported no one shooting a Mount Rogers Pony. Actually, the fuzzy creatures have thrived – and multiplied.
“Now, they auction off the ponies to control the number of the herd,” Thompson said.
Park visitors, still, cannot resist comparing these animals to the more famous Chincoteague Ponies of Virginia’s Eastern Shore.
Living in the breezes of the Atlantic Ocean, the ancestors of the marsh-tromping Chincoteague Ponies can be traced to either survivors of an ancient shipwreck or as stock stashed on Assateague Island by early settlers who wanted to avoid paying taxes and building fences.
In Southwest Virginia, the Mount Rogers Ponies originated when a horse breeder, the late Bill Pugh of Teas, Va., supplied an extra stock of Shetland Ponies to the Wilburn Ridge Pony Association and the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in 1974.
“The ponies are a natural grazing species,” Thompson said. “To keep the balds and the areas open, we’re trying to use the ponies to take care of some of the negative vegetation – the briars.”
In turn, the ponies have gained some fame – with their likeness showing up on postcards and in books.
“Mainly, it’s just a neat thing to see them out in the wild,” Thompson said. “It reminds people of that bygone area – of the freedom of ranging in a natural setting.”

IF YOU GO
What: Grayson Highlands Fall Festival
When: Sept. 26-27. The Wilburn Ridge Pony Association is holding its annual pony auction on Sept. 26 (Saturday), starting at 2 p.m., at Grayson Highlands State Park as part of the Grayson Highlands Fall Festival.
Where: Grayson Highlands State Park, near Rugby, Va.
Directions: The park is located off U.S. Highway 58, about halfway between Whitetop and Volney in Grayson County.
Details: The festival runs 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day. It features food, crafts and bluegrass music.
Admission: Festival parking is $6 per car, with proceeds going to benefit the Rugby Volunteer Rescue Squad and Fire Department.
Info: (276) 579-7092