TOrIZOIlS

The cry of the Catahoulasbugled up from the riverbottom, rolling throughcathedrals of ancient

cypress, through pickets of tupelo,gum and southern yellow pine.The hounds hada boar but couldnot hold him. Theground was soft butthe horses sure-footed as we rushedthrough timber,buck-brush and briar.We were way downin the SavannahRiver bottoms,Marion Gohagan andI on Marsh Tackyhorses. Suddenly thehowling and barkingseemed to come fromeverywhere at once.

"Give your horseher head," Marionsaid. "She'll take youright to them."

I slacked thereins, held on. Themare dropped herhead, stretchedher neck and thewoods came by ina frightening greenblur while branchesslapped and clawed

·at my clothes andface. TWo minutes,three, and we couldhear the gf'llnti ng

·and snorting of unenraged boar. Weswung from oursaddles, tethered the horses,pulled our pistols and waded into

·the slashing, snarling melee.

MOstplaces out west, it'sillegal to approach game on

horseback. In Minnesota, a horseis considered a motor vehicle, andfirearms transported thereuponmust be unloaded and completely

cased. No doubt,that's what landedJesse James andthe Younger boysin so much troublein orthfield whenthey rode into townwith their pistolbutts peeking fromtheir holsters. Butthroughout much ofthe South, the gunhorse is as reveredas the gundog.

In Georgia, Alabamaand the Floridapanhandle, quail huntsare often equestrianevents - a matchedpair of redbone mulespulling a wagon withdog boxes, extrashells, a field lunchand refreshments, theshooters folluwingpointers or setters onhorseback throughsighing stands oflongleafpine. Typically,three riders takingturns shooting.All dismount, twoapproach the pointwhile the third holdsthe reins. BuL on SouthCarolina deer drives,mounted men ride

with the hounds, pushing the quarrytoward a line of standers, whoopingand hollering encouragement, shooting

Most hunters dreamof owning one really

good gundog. Buthow about a good

gun horse?

AMY BAYLOR

{§he author and his Marsh Jackymountpause to let the hounds coarse after a wildboar in the grass and pines of South Carolina.

SPORTING etASSI!S

49

By Roger Pinckney

buckshot from the saddle whenevera deer jumps up Within range ",Launching a load of buckshot frumbetween a horses' ears requires a level-headed, rock-solid mount. And this iswhere the Marsh Tacky excels.

If any horse could qualify as anendangered species, the Marsh Tac1:rwould head the list. Once common mswamps and on the islands of coastalSouth Carolina and Georgia, Tackiescarried colonial cavalry to victory inthe Revolution. They carried huntersand mail. They pulled plows, wagons.

They fetched the midwife when yourmomma's time was due, hauled youto the burying ground when yourtime was due too. But then alongcame Henry Ford and John Deereand there seemed to be no future fora big-hearted little horse with a sixthsense for getting around in the woods.Too soon, there,were less than onehundred left.

Folks who claimed to know saidit was no big loss. Tackies were juststrays from colonial plantations,stunted by poor forage and casual

breeding. But there were those whopassionately believed otherwise.Marsh Tackies, they said, weredirect descendants of the horsesof the Spanish conquistadors.

Wall Street magnate andpresidential advisor Bernard Baruchwas an early conserver of the breed.Born in 1870 in Camden, SouthCarolina, Baruch was the son ofa Jewish Confederate, a surgeonassigned to patch up Robert E.Lee should he ever catch a Yankeebullet. The elder Baruch took his .family north after the war, where theyounger amassed a fortune playingthe Gubill1 sugar market.

Bernard Baruch returnedsouth in 1905, buying land aroundGeorgetown, trying to reestablishthe colonial Hobcaw Barony, 22,000acres granted by King Charles IIto one of his cronies. Baruch had alarge stable of horses and his staffkept them ready for deer drives andbird hunting. Generals Mark Clark,George Marshall, Omar Bradley andBlack Jack Pershing were frequentguests; senators, congressmen,cabinet members, captains of

, industry, anyone who was anyone inthe first half of the 20th century wasinvited to join Baruch and his familyat the barony for their famous duck,deer, quail and hog hunts._ Baruch owned thoroughbreds

that he raced at Saratoga, had theknowledge and means to purchaseliterally any horse in the world,but he chose Marsh Tackies for hisfavored gun horses.

"In interviews with formeremployees," notes author and historianLee Brockington, '1learned that Mr.Baruch sent staff down to HiltonHead Island to buy Marsh Tackies.Local residents brought the Tackiesover from the island by barge and soldthem to Baruch's men, waiting witha truck and trailer. With Hobcawsswamps and sandhills, the hardy littletackies were perfect for hunting."

Havilah Babcock, USC professorand author of My Health is Better inNooember, no stranger to horsefleshand notoriously free with his opinions,

said, <Take a horse to have yourpicture made on, but a mule to get youhome ... a horse has more educationbut a mule has more sense. The finesthunting mounts I've ever riddenwere the Tacky ponies owned by Mr.Bernard Baruch of Hobcaw Barony."

Bernard Baruch was not the onlyman to go looking for Marsh Tackieson Hilton Head. D. P. Lowther ofRidgeland, South Carolina, rodeTaches as a child and was alwaysimpressed hy their level-headedn~ssand stamina.

"An BOO-pound Tfcky will ridea 1200-pound quarter horse intothe ground," he says, As an adultLowther set about as:sembling aherd. "Back in the early'60s I'd goover to Hilton Head and come homewith a couple of Tackles. It was agood way to spend a Saturday."

Pretty soon, he had 50, not one ofthem broke to ride.

"Folks thought I was crazy." ButD. P. Lowther, Mister D P, as theycall him now, became the seniorkeeper of the breed. There were

I others, Ed Ravenel of Charleston,: David Grant of Darlington andi Marion Gohagan of Scotia, where we

rode after wild hogs not so long ago.

so what makes a Tacky? Any colora horse can be, a confirmation

like an Arabian, like a Barb, or anAndulsian. Fourteen hands to fifteen-two, less than a thousand pounds,strong narrow chest, sloping rump,dished face, flared nostrils, flintyhooves, long tail and double mane tobeat back the bugs, sometimes a dorsalstripe and a faint brinclling about thelegs. But mostly it's about attitude.

Hungry, they will be happy~thsalt grass. Heavy, they will grunt, rolltheir eyes but haul you anyway. Light,they will treat you kindly. Lonesome,they will follow you around like a dog.Mired, they will roll right out of it.

I Creek or river, they will plunge rightI in. Totally wild, you can be riding in

weeks. You can shoot from the saddletoo, and they will not flinch. If a Tacr;tells you no, you're either asking thewrong question or asking the rightquestion the wrong way. And shouldyou get thrown, or more likely fall off,it is not quite so far to the ground.

But are Tackies really Spanishhorses? Folklore abounds. Strays fromthe 1536 Desoto expedition? Survivorsof shipwrecks? Runaways from Spanishmissions? Drop-offs on barrier islands?Science had the final word.

JearmetteBeranger, Researchand Technical Programs managerfor the American Livestock BreedsConservancy, was studying the FloridaCracker Horse, a proven Spanishderivative, when she heard about some

.crazy man up in Ridgeland whose herdhad then grown to 100 head. Thatwould be Mister D. P.

Beranger drove up to see him,clipped some horse hair, drew someblood. She was surprised by theanalysis, though most Tacky fancierswere not. "The Tacky's genetics datefrom the golden age of Spain," sheflatly proclaimed. "The conquistadorsneeded a mount that would carrygreat weight over long distanceson scant forage. Breeders in the

Lowcountry needed the same thingsthe Spanish explorers did, and theykept those traits alive."

Berranger is not sure aboutthe high romance of Desoto orshipwrecks. Her reading of DNAtraces the tackies directly to a largeherd the Spanish kept outside St.Augustine in the early 1700's.

"Florida Indians would load theirhorses with deer skins, come up toCharleston to trade," she notes. "Theywould sell the skins, then sell thehorses, walk back to Florida and startall over again."

Then there was an expeditionagainst the Spanish and their Indianallies by the South Carolina militia in1723. The English brought severalhundred head back to Charleston asspoils of war where they were dubbed"tacky," or common, as opposed tofine English mounts. .

In 2007 Beranger helped ownersand breeders establish the CarolinaMarsh Tacky Association, whichseeks recognition for the breed andregistration for individual horses.The association has set a goal of athousand horses, the number it thinkswill assure the breed's survival.

·Down in the swamp, Marion andI holstered our pistols, got our

wind back, wrestled our pulse backclose to normal. It had been quite ascramble. The boar put Marion up

·a tree and hooked one of the dogs .·Feelings were hurt, but not muchelse, and both man and dog will bemore careful next time. Marion ran alariat around the boar's snout, securedit behind tusks sharp as broken glass.Marion swung into the saddle, dalliedthe rope to the horn, and his horse

· leaned into the load. An SOO-poundI horse, a 200-pound rider and a 300-"pound boar, no problem. The happy

dogs trotted along behind as the-Tackies carried us out of the swcunp,

· back up to ~gher ground. ~

For more information on M~rsh Tackies,..visit www.carolinarnarshtacky.com;-unow.mareht acku.org or~Www.albc-usa. o'rg.