The Vaquero: A World-Class Horseman
Head and shoulders above his counterparts for nearly 500 years.
By: Lee Anderson 08/25/2009
As an Old West fan you may have tried your hand at riding a horse; you might even consider yourself pretty proficient at it. Some of you can only imagine what it must be like to sit astraddle a five-foot-tall, half a ton of living, thinking, lightning-quick muscle with nothing more than a pair of thin, narrow strips of leather attached to it for control. Whatever your level of experience, imagine what it would be like to have this animal respond to your every whim and at the lightest feather touch on the reins, regardless of how fast your horse is moving or how dynamic the maneuver you ask it to perform. This is precisely the everyday working relationship the Spanish and Mexican vaquero has had with his mount as far back as the 1700s. He was, in every sense of the phrase, a world-class horseman. The horsemanship of the average American cowboy, no offense, pales in comparison.
Conquistador Training
The roots of the Mexican vaqueros’ unique horsemanship go back a couple of centuries before the Spanish Conquistadors landed in what is now Mexico in the late 1400s. As military men, their horsemanship was the result of several centuries of battlefield-tested horsemanship in Europe. Back then, only the social elite and the military were allowed to even ride a horse. In New Spain (now Mexico), however, 50 years of cattle herds on the open range called for peon herdsmen to ride horses. The only source with the knowledge, the time and the experience to train these men was the military. The soldiers were teaching these first vaqueros the fine art of equitation and dressage 500 years ago. For the next 300 years the vaqueros adapted and perfected their dressage-based horsemanship skills to the working of huge herds of cattle. By 1800 they had elevated their horsemanship to such a science, it was truly an art form beautiful to behold.
To some degree, circumstances forced this artistry on them. Spanish horses were not large—around 800 pounds—and a full-grown Spanish bull could easily top 1,100 or 1,200. Handling one of these bulls after it was lassoed required perfect teamwork between horse and rider. The horse responded to nothing more than a shift of the vaqueros’ weight and leg pressure.
In comparison, American cowboys preferred light horse breeds, weighing from 800-1,300 pounds, using the lighter horses for pulling buggies and for pleasure riding. Unlike the vaqueros, most American cowboys did not train their horses to respond to the riders’ body language. Texas cowboys developed their own style of riding that spread throughout the American West, in which they used split reins and moved their hands to the left or right of the saddle to control the horse by neck reining.
The neck rein is the cornerstone to the partnership of the cowboy and his mount in America. The vaquero was not without his need for proper equipment. His long, braided rawhide reata (rope) was 60 to 100 feet long, while his saddle had a large diameter saddle horn. If he roped the horns of a bull, his reata was then wrapped around the saddle horn a couple of times and, being braided, stretched enough so as not to break. The vaquero then used the large saddle horn as a friction brake to “play” the bull to a stop. The horse turned its butt under the rope and leaned into the pull. If the bull was too aggressive after it was roped, the horse could be quickly sent scampering all the way around it so the rope completely encircled all four legs and the animal went down as it was pulled tight. Roping and jerking the front legs out from under it was the safest and easiest way to put a heavy or a mean animal down.
Comments (2)
Nice article~
For Western, Vaquero Surf Music..check out Primal SKy "Caballero Del Mar"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAjYja...
TIMOTEO
El Charro Surfeador~
Informative, enlightening, and entertaining. Good use of Internet, too, with photos gallery and youtube.
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