Paul and Peg's Travels: Horse races on the beach

It has been a truly beautiful day in Hilton Head! After a welcome breakfast at the resort, we went to church down the beach at the First Baptist. Then we hurried home to change our clothes and headed down to the beach to watch the horse races!

I don't remember ever hearing of Marsh Tacky horses, but it is a very old breed dating back to the Spanish who brought them. A few years ago there were still some wild herds in South Carolina - I'm not sure if there still are or not. They are endangered now, and are the "State Horse" of South Carolina. These are the kind of horses that were racing on the beach today.

A "track" was marked off with ropes on the beach at low tide, and they ran heats of 2 at a time, then run-offs of three. I think they were about 1/4 to 1/2 km long, and there were 1000's of people lining the track watching!

This was one of the run-offs of three.

The Tackies are quite small - only about 14 - 15 hands, and several were kind of like buck-skin colour, though not all. Some of them had this peculiar stipe, starting at their mane and running down their back and tail. I saw one at the Royal Winter Fair with that marking, but don't know if it was the same breed. This one also had funny stripey marks on his feet.

This 21 year old Molly, who didn't race this year, but won the race the last 2 years - with a young girl as rider. Molly was just there visiting with her owner this year.

Molly's owner kindly gave me one of these buttons - I didn't really ride her!

After a late lunch on the patio of Steamers Seafood restaurant and a nap, we went back down to the beach for a walk. Most of the people had gone by then. This is another very wide flat beach that's easy to walk and bike on, but they don't drive on it.