Written By Lisa Breslin

Ten-year-old Skylar Hull’s life revolves around horses and hard work. Every birthday that she can remember, she has asked her grandfather, “Poppy” (Edward Shock of Westminster), “Is my pony waiting for me in the pasture?”

For years she hoped, but didn’t really expect his answer to be “Yes.”

This year, thanks to the Manchester girl’s writing and persuasion skills, there is a new brown and white pony named Angel in her family’s pasture. Skylar and another girl from Georgia, Annie Mac Strickland, were the winners of an essay contest sponsored by a local, nonprofit group called The Feather Fund.

As winners, the girls got to travel to Chincoteague Island, Virginia. for the Wild Pony Swim & Round-up, select a pony and bid until they won.

From the time she wrote her winning essay in mid-June, until the hot day in July when she placed her winning $2,100 bid for Angel, everything was “a big a blur,” Skylar said.

“I remember writing about how much I wanted a pony and how each birthday I asked Poppy for one,” she said. “I also remember promising to exercise it daily – which I am now doing – and then putting it in a pasture with a cold stream when it gets old.”

The contest win has been exciting for the entire Hull family.

During the auction, Skylar’s parents, Barbara and Greg Hull, also successfully bid $1,100 for a pony for Skylar’s 12-year-old sister, Kailyn. The family expanded the pasture for the new ponies and launched into a dedicated regiment of feeding, exercising, brushing and loving them.

“This was definitely the experience of a lifetime,” said Barbara Hull. “And it all happened so fast.”

“Skylar has been given a huge gift, and now I want to make sure that she gives back to a fund that helps so many children,” she added.

The Wild Pony Swim & Round-up, an event poignantly chronicled in author Marguerite Henry’s book, Misty of Chincoteague, is held annually to benefit the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Department. For information, call The Chincoteague Chamber of Commerce: (757) 336-6161. For more information about The Feather Fund, see www.featherfund.org. – L.M.B.