Vaquero Traditions

[Mike Leonard]

Miss Kitty Kat,

350 Sections can take the starch out of most any bronc or bronc stomper I reckon. I know you are not joking because I have been to your place and by golly I think I would rather ride a horse across most of it than ride in a dang pickup truck on them roads or them two tracks they call roads. And I would want to be riding a horse that wouldn't ride double and that way I wouldn't have to listen to Benny G talk about eating them dang Prare Dogs all day long. LOL!

Seriously folks Miss Kitty Kat is a Top Hand in anybody's country and she has some super good horses and they get used a bunch!

[Average Joe]

Since we are on the vaquero way’s what styles of rope do you boys and girls like to use? I love to rope with a reata if it’s been built right. For every day roping, doctoring, and big fancy loops I like a 9.5mm 3 strand poly gold that is waxed 60ft( I rope with a new one a few times and run some rope to burn it slightly then make a special wax blend and wax it. It gives it some weight and feels similar to a reata) my third favorite would be a Maguey that is damp from a gunny sac. I will use nylon if I have to. I rope slick the more the horn is like glass the more I like it (unless I loose my rope and owe the crew a case lol.) And I think there is something to be said about the center fire rigs fun to rope out of and gives your bronc a lot of freedom to move. By no means am I a hand I just like to have fun.

[Mike Leonard]

Joe,

I am like you I love a reata but dang they are pretty expensive and you have to be mighty careful with them. Not so much from the roping standpoiunt but you can dmage them pretty easy if you fould them. wouldn't be a real poroblem to a guy that could build them and repair them well but I am not that handy. LOL! I like the 5/16 gold poly too and I run mule hide wraps on my horns but I have watches some of those guys rope with them old metal horns even and be able to play a big critter liie a big trout when they got room to work. One the centerfire and 5/8 a person just doesn't know how much he can do with them until he sees it done. Most think they got to have rim fires and doubles to rope but not if you know how to handle the beef.

I never have grown fond of nylon ropes and to me they are the brush popper and arena ropes but I just don't like they way they feel.

a good Plymoth Silk Manila is about as fine a rope to throw as one ever felt if he keeps it stored right, but they will break.

Magauhay: yes I have used them and I must say them Charro guys have to be good! LOL!

[lmorgan]

This is a really good thread and I'm enjoying it a bunch. It's amazing how much things are the same and how they are different depending on where you hail from. Down here in the piney woods and marsh, we're a long way from California or the vaqueros, but I think the old ways of starting colts soft and easy are pretty universal. The French and Spanish and even the Indians in Louisiana were driving cattle to market a hundred years before Oliver Loving sent the first herd from Texas to Missouri. That doesn't make us better, or worse, it's just what it is. A good horse is a good horse and a ruined pony is going to get you in a bind real quick.

It's funny that Mike mentioned ropes. I'll be the first to admit that I'm no kind of hand with a rope, but terrain plays a lot in what kind of twine you're twirling, I think. We have to use ropes down here that can really hold up in the rain, mud, humidity, and grime, day in and day out. Almost everything we have made out of leather will mildew quick, so reatas (though I really admire them) just don't seem to hold up. I personally like a 45-50 foot rope, but when you're jumping blown down tree tops in briars over your head, a rope that's too long can get you in a bind really quick. Kinda like dallying vs. tieing hard and fast. Alot of the old French cavaliers down in the marsh like to tie hard and fast, which is fine, but it just don't work good when you're roping in the timber. Of course, we do a lot of things a little different down here. We like our dogs big and mean and willing to work the front end of a cow. We like our whips to move cattle where roping isn't an option and everything we own has to be able to swim.

Bill Jones has a great book out called "Louisiana Cowboys". For you hands out west, it would probably be an interesting read. No matter what, though, a good horse is a good horse, no matter where you're from. Good horses are made, not born, and they have to be made with wet saddle blankets. Nothing worth having ever comes quick, bet it dogs or horses.

[Brady Davis]

larry I gotta read that book. You know, I've spent some time in MS and LA with some really really good hands. There are a bunch of top horsemen down there. I went to some team pennings and team sortings in south MS and LA last year and I was very impressed.

[lmorgan]

Brady,

It really is an outstanding book. I've seen them in book stores across the country and even for sale at the National Cowboy Hall of Fame in Oklahoma City, but I picked mine up off of ebay for $20. Best $20 I ever spent. We've always produced a ton of good rodeo hands, but there's some real horsemen and cowhands down here, too. We just do things a bit different. If you've never seen a pack of Catahoulas bay some old wild swamp cattle in the marsh and then watch some hands try to load them on barges, then you're in for a treat. I'm up in the piney woods, so our cattle here can walk most places, but some of the guys down south spend as much time swimming horses and cattle as they do driving them.

There's a good story in Jones' book about the Broussards down around Sulphur, LA. I've rodeoed with a lot of those folks and they're the real deal. Old Man Broussard always cautioned his kids to never rope an alligator. He said that any self respecting cowboy with a rope is going to try and rope anything he can drop it on, but he would whip his kids for roping gators. Seems he roped one when he was young and the gator went into his death roll and literally rolled himself up old man Broussard's rope to the horn (he was tied hard and fast). He said that cow pony didn't take to having a 7 foot gator on his back and the old man wasn't real fond of having one in his lap, either. I believe he ended up cutting his rope to get out of there. I bet his horse was real proud of him.

[Powder River Walker]

Roping a gator I need to read this one. I roped a black bear on the mountain one time, seen a rock chuck get roped, and tried to rope a coyote. Never thought about a gator that would be interesting? I have been around catahullas some, knew a guy from pagosa springs co and he uses catahullas to run cats and gather wild cow off the navada desert. I also have a neighber that has catahullas and runs brangus cattle. I think being a good stockman means you have to know what kind of dog you need to work them.
PRW

[lmorgan]

I've heard of people trying to rope turkeys and I know a guy in West Texas who broke a blue female from running deer by running her down horseback and roping her. Didn't kill her and she never ran another deer. Finished out into a decent hound. We had a cowlot rodeo here onetime that featured Emu roping as an event. It was right after the ostrich/emu craze where folks were selling off cattle to raise big birds planning to get rich and ended up going bust.

As for the gator, I believe Mr. Broussard's words were that he did what any self respecting cowboy with a rope ought to do when he saw that gator... he roped it. But he also thought his kids should be smart enough to learn from his mistakes. I can barely catch a roping dummy standing still, so I doubt I'll be pulling any gators up in my saddle anytime soon.

The original thread was about vaquero traditions. We're a long way from California vaqueros or the buckaroos in the Great Basin, but I think what works with horses works no matter where you are or what your accent sounds like.

Lessez le bon temps roullez, mon ami, and cowboy up.

[desertdog]

Member' that Ol' cowboy song about the guy who roped a lion, got him around the middle and couldn't turn him loose, Yehaw..

[Here Kitty Kitty]

Mike,
Thanks for the kind words.

Mr. Morgan,
I just ordered that book. Can't wait. I agree a good horse is where you find them just like good hands. They are from all different parts of the country. Their just not making as many anymore. As far as roping animals make sure the antlered ones are in velvet and don't think bobcats wont come up your rope. They can really jump when they need to. We too dally and tie on. Depends on what you got going. We doctor and catch spoiled cattle alone most of the time and some of this country is so thick in cedars that its just quicker and easier to tie on.

Joe,
Those rawhide reatas are a work of art. Do play around with long ropes when we get time to try different loops and mess with colts. Just don't for work. I use a 3/8 scant 35 ft. King rope. Hats off to the guys who can use 50 or 60 ft. and be handy with them.

[lmorgan]

[Geno]

I like how there is a lot of u guy that say we dont use the old ways. We do a lot but there is a lot of things that have improved just like we have rieners at 3 doing things that 30 years ago we couldnt get a 5 year old to do. And the coment that if u take that horse outside he would be the worst thing in the world that is all opinion i worked for Buster Welch for 2 years and every futurity colt that we had after they got started we rode them outside a lot but he had a very large ranch and all we had to do was open the gate and we could hit a long trot for hours and we drug calves on all them. I know for a fact that bobby avila came out and visited us and said that is the only way to make one but the rest of us arnt set up like this or we would take them out every day. I grew up in california on a very large ranch raise horses and trained horses my whole life and the califonios ranch rodeo is a big turn out but a bunch of bull@%$# all they do there is see who can dress up the best Jay Harney and Black wont ascotiate with that deal any more cause of it. Taking a horse From a hack to a spade is probally the most fufilling thing in life there is three stages of a hack witch are just three sizes the third being the two rien and then finding the style of spade that your horse likes and how severe then how wild u like it. Then when u have the finished product it is great. I could ramble on about horses forever just cause this is what i have grown up with an still what i do every day of my life. I usually keep my mouth shut and just try to learn as much as i can on here from reading post from mike leonard and guys like that but just my thoughts and i will dig up pics of horses and spade bits! Gene

[lmorgan]

A spade bit around here would be about as foreign as a pair of wooly chaps, but I think the concept behind the use of one is timeless and goes beyond the vaqueros and buckaroos. I'm the last person to talk about vaquero traditions. I wouldn't know a real buckaroo if he slapped me in the face with one of thos amish looking lids, but I think the overall principle behind a two-rein set up and a spade is very basic. It's about having light hands and staying out of a horse's mouth as much as possible. I've spent the last 25 years studying horse cavalry tactics and military horsemanship from around the world. A lot of what the vaqueros in Mexico and the west coast did could probably be traced back to European cavalry schools dating back to the dark ages. Even in contemporary North America, US and Canadian cavalry units were using two-rein style set ups on cavalry horses as late as 1940.

At the time of Columbus, Spain was the leading military empire on the planet and it led the world in the development of mounted military tactics and warefare. The first Spanish explorers were the conquistadores, who were to a man members of the Spanish military. Almost all of them were cavalrymen. The prize for conquering the New World was to be given huge tracts of land to rule over as a lord like in Europe. Cattle soon became a prized commodity on these haciendas. The Indians and mestizos that the Spanish dons employed had to learn horsemanship from the dons.

I bet if we all did enough research into modern styles of training and riding, we'd find that we don't know nearly as much as we think we do. What's old is new and what's new is old.

But in the end, it doesn't matter if you call them vaqueros, buckaroos, cavaliers, crackers or cowboys... the concept is the same. A man trying to get the best out of a horse with the least amount of effort.

[Geno]

That is very true and one other difrence is all of those guys were judged and measured on was how good there horses rode around and how nice of tack they had and what kind of bridle they used. It is kinda the same with a lot of us we think that we need to judge some one by what they drive.