One of oldest wild horses born on NC Outer Banks has died, fund says. ‘End of an era’

A wild horse among the oldest and most notoriously rebellious on North Carolina’s Outer Banks has died “gracefully and fearlessly,” according to the Corolla Wild Horse Fund.

Moxie began “showing signs of distress” on Friday, June 14, and her condition deteriorated rapidly, herd manager Meg Puckett reported in a June 18 Facebook post.

“After determining that Moxie was acutely colicking, the decision was made to euthanize her,” Puckett wrote.

“Because we were unable to determine the cause of the colic, we transported Moxie’s body to the state diagnostic lab for a necropsy. At this point in time we are still waiting on further diagnostics and hope to have some answers.”

Colic is a gastrointestinal ailment and a leading cause of death for horses, experts say. Moxie is the second Outer Banks horse to die this month from colic, which “can come on suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere,” veterinarians say.

She was more than 30 years old, making her older than many of the Outer Banks’ vacation homes and the “sound-to-sea” fence built to keep wild horses off busy roads.

Moxie rarely let tourists forget she was there first, earning a reputation for going whereever she wanted, including inside a grocery store, the fund noted.

She was originally named Chaos, which Puckett says was fitting.

“In the mid-90s when the fence was installed, Chaos and her harem ... were pushed north to where the road wasn’t paved, but they didn’t stay there for long,” she said.

“They learned how to get around the fence and continued to frequent the residential neighborhoods of Corolla, and were known for raiding the vegetable stand and even using the automatic doors to go into Food Lion. Their antics made them famous ... and stories about them were published regularly in the local papers.”

Moxie and her posse were eventually rounded up and moved to Dews Island in the Currituck Sound, where they stayed for nearly 20 years, she said. The horses were moved again in 2017, which is when Moxie went to the nonprofit fund’s horse farm, officials said.

An ongoing DNA study began with the mares from Dews Island and it revealed Moxie was matriarch of a family known as the Chaos Line, officials said.

Many of those horses inherited her personality traits, including her defiant streak, Puckett said.

“It’s hard to summarize more than 30 years of such a remarkable life in one post. Moxie’s death brings us that much closer to the end of an era that is quickly being lost to time,” Puckett said.

“She was a Banker pony through and through. The old, salty kind that you read stories about. The kind that legends have been built around for generations. She lives on in her legacy, in her relatives, and in everything she taught us.”

This story was originally published June 21, 2024 at 12:47 PM with the headline "One of oldest wild horses born on NC Outer Banks has died, fund says. ‘End of an era’."