High On the Hog--Putting 'Cuz To Work

I love Marsh Tackys. They are now the state horse of South Carolina, as they should be. Their history is intricately bound with the history of working people from the Low Country to the Mountains. Small, gaited, remarkably calm, trainable and tough--endless endurance (sound familiar?) I have no doubt that these horses share not only some common roots with the Bankers but I suspect also the Choctaw and Cherokee lines of Colonial Spanish horses.

Like the Bankers, they were the horses of poor, hard working folks. Indeed, the breed name "Tacky" is rooted in its Colonial meaning, not as being of poor quality but of being common and widespread. Today they are neither common nor widespread. Like the Corollas, their future is very tenuous. David Grant has spearheaded the recent efforts to preserve and breed these horses. He has worked closely with the American Livestock Breed Conservancy and the Tackys now have a good foothold.

In recent years they have been used by hunters for jump shooting deer in cut overs and other places that the tree line was more shrub like than tree like. Though not widely known, until the mid fifties the white tail deer was gone from much of the south. Efforts to restore them were so successful that we are over run with deer. On into the early sixties deer were still quite rare in our area. Back then hunting usually meant small game, squirrel, rabbits, coons, and quail, in particular. When deer came along small game hunting fell by the wayside for nearly everyone.

Much of the south is becoming over run with wild hogs. The hogs are destructive beyond imagination. Within twenty years I expect hog hunting to cause deer hunting to go the way that small game hunting has. To "go hunting" will mean to go hog hunting in a large chunk of this nation. David Grant is getting out in front of that curve. He provides guided hog hunts on Marsh Tackys at Carolina Marsh Tacky Outdoors (Marshtacky.com)


Saving these horses requires getting them in public view and showing what they can do. David Grant has come upon a great way to do that.