Sophie Shalhoub sat atop her horse Gigja under drizzling rain at Woodbe Farm in West Tisbury on Sunday. Ms. Shalhoub, who rode Gigja to the farm from Chilmark, was showing the pony as part of the Martha’s Vineyard Horse Council’s second annual open house.
It was the scanner call heard around the Vineyard on Sunday afternoon: a horse in West Tisbury had fallen into a frozen pond. And more than a dozen volunteers from across the Island responded. A day after a large blizzard left a foot of snow in its wake, the meadow in Deep Bottom Pond was a sheet of white. There was no noticeable difference between the manmade pond and the meadow.
Take a drive up-Island and you’re guaranteed to spot a horse or two grazing in a field. Draft horses, show horses, miniature horses — equines of all sorts flourish here.
Nearly 40 people gathered Monday at Misty Meadows Farm in West Tisbury to celebrate the birthday of a horse that survived incredible odds to make it through his first year.
Greeted with homemade horse cupcakes while in a stall decorated with birthday banners and posters, the yearling seemed to take his amazing recovery in stride.
On Saturday morning, a group of parents, instructors and friends stood on the grounds of Crow Hollow Farm in West Tisbury and watched as 40 young riders, dressed in their very best, trotted horses and jumped them in the outdoor ring. The 20 rolling acres of surrounding farmland glowed in the August morning light.
Long before dawn, you can hear the soft munching of hay and quiet nickering of horses at Pond View Farm as Sarah Doyle prepares for another 6 a.m. trip off-Island to a horse show.
Sarah moved to the Island in 1986 and began teaching riding lessons at Arrowhead Farm in West Tisbury. She began living on the Vineyard year-round after she took a job with the late Anne and Tony Fisher. She currently lives in Chilmark with her husband, Bret Stearns, and three kids, Jeff, 19, Ava, 6, and Graham, 4.
