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Wild Horses Can't Keep Us Away!

Stampede to Wolf Point, Montana, from July 12 through 14 for three rodeos and a wild horse race!

Another famous wild horse event takes place in just a couple of weeks. On July 24, the wild ponies on Assateague Island, Virginia, will be herded by "salt water cowboys" across the Assateague Channel to the town of Chincoteague.

Artist George Catlin described his encounters with wild horses of the Great Plains in the 1830s.

"There is no other animal on the prairies so wild and so sagacious as the horse. … I made many attempts to approach them by stealth, when they were grazing and playing their gambols, without ever having been more than once able to succeed. In this instance, I left my horse, and with my friend Chadwick, skulked through a ravine for a couple of miles; until we were at length brought within gun-shot of a fine herd of them, when I used my pencil for some time, while we were under cover of a little hedge of bushes which effectually screened us from their view. In this herd we saw all the colours, nearly, that can be seen in a kennel of English hounds. Some were milk white, some jet black—others were sorrel, and bay, and cream colour—many were of an iron grey; and others were pied, containing a variety of colours on the same animal. Their manes were very profuse, and hanging in the wildest confusion over their necks and faces—and their long tails swept the ground."

Source: William H. Truettner. The Natural Man Observed: A Study of Catlin's Indian Gallery (Washington, D.C.: The Smithsonian Institution Press in cooperation with the Amon Carter Museum and The National Collection of Fine Arts, 1979).

Pictured: George Catlin, 1796–1872, Wild Horses at Play, 1834–1837, oil, 19 1/2 x 27 5/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr.