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December 2007 • VOLUME 28 • © HORSES For LIFE™ Magazine
The Equus Survival Trust, a conservation nonprofit specializing in horses, is working to help save the Carolina Marsh Tacky. A team was recently assembled by the Trust’s Executive Director, Victoria Tollman to collect DNA and document the horses of the largest remaining herd. April 14 was a clear day and promised to be hot. We were not disappointed. Jeannie Cave, a savvy horsewoman and board member of the conservation organization Equus Survival Trust, came along to lend a hand. Jeannie proved to be the most crucial member of the team by day’s end. My daughters, Scarlett (age 12) and Kailah (age 9) were also along for the trip and looking forward as much as I to seeing the Lowther Marsh Tackys again. We had previously met DP Lowther and his wife in October of 2006 when the Trust organized the very successful Marsh Tacky Open House to help spearhead the revival of the breed. Lowther’s family has bred Tackys for three generations, tracing his original herd back to the Civil War in South Carolina.  Lowther has over 100 horses divided into several breeding groups. I was struck by the wide variety of solid colors and patterns including grullas, duns, and roans, yet all had a distinctive related Tacky look – straight or convex Iberian profiles with wide foreheads, deep, powerful chests, though often narrow in width, with hindquarters that slope steeply, all evidence of their Barbary blood. Hooves were typically flinty and durable; none seem to requiring anything but proper trimming. Yet for all their ruggedness, the Carolina Marsh Tacky seems a gentle, good-natured horse, full of curiosity, that when trained, becomes a trusted, thinking partner. Most of the manes and tails were usually long, also indicating their Spanish heritage. No doubt the longer hair was retained in the New World as a useful trait, protecting them against flies and mosquitoes rampant in low country coastal living. The Carolina Marsh Tackys are an eastern member of the Colonial Spanish group,
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