Fine Horses and Fair-Minded Riders: Modern Vaquero Horsemanship

By JuliAnna Ávila

What we currently call “horse whispering” has roots in a form of western horsemanship that traveled from Europe to Mexico and the United States, and was then transformed by Native Americans and working cowboys into Vaquero horsemanship. Fine Horses and Fair-Minded Riders: Modern Vaquero Horsemanship documents the learning and practice of Vaquero horsemanship, which has survived as a vibrant part of horse culture. In her study, Ávila first focused on participants in the southeastern United States before expanding to include their mentors from across the United States.

Ávila characterizes what she found as “a collapse of distance” between geographical and cultural boundaries, digital and physical spaces, and, most significantly, horses and humans. Influenced by New Literacies scholarship and employing a sociocultural theoretical framework, Ávila explores self-directed learning journeys; the flexibility of apprentice and expert positions; the influence of consumer culture; the philosophy and significance of the cultural roots of Vaquero horsemanship; the role of technology; and what the future of this continually evolving horsemanship might include. At the heart of this volume are personal stories and firsthand accounts from those who have studied modern Vaquero horsemanship, which can help to create exceptional and powerful bonds between horses and humans.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Purdue University Press
• Release date: Apr 15, 2024
• ISBN: 9781612499529

JuliAnna Ávila

JuliAnna Ávila is an associate professor in the English Department at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She received her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, in education in language, literacy, and sociocultural studies. In addition to five edited and coedited collections, she has published in Irish Educational Studies, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Teaching Education, English Journal, Literacy, Theory Into Practice, and Pedagogies. She is the recipient of the American Educational Research Association Steve Cahir Award for Research on Writing, the Edward B. Fry Book Award, and the Divergent Publication Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research.

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Fine Horses and Fair-Minded Riders

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THE HUMAN-ANIMAL BOND

A dynamic relationship has always existed between people and animals. Each influences the psychological and physiological state of the other. Published in collaboration with Purdue University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, New Directions in the Human-Animal Bond expands our knowledge of the interrelationships between people, animals, and their environment. Scholarly works, memoirs, practitioner guides, and books written for a general audience are welcomed on all aspects of human-animal interaction and welfare.

series editor

Alan M. Beck, Purdue University

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Fine Horses and Fair-Minded Riders

Modern Vaquero Horsemanship

JuliAnna Ávila

Purdue University Press • West Lafayette, Indiana

Copyright 2024 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available at the Library of Congress.

978-1-61249-950-5 (hardback)

978-1-61249-952-9 (epub)

978-1-61249-951-2 (paperback)

978-1-61249-953-6 (epdf)

Cover: Partners, Kathleen Kelley Fine Art.

This book is dedicated to the generous horse, who, to paraphrase Woody Guthrie, never holds your hard traveling against you.

In the stories of years ago it is brave horses that are the heroes in the memories of the old-time riders whose lives were just a series of different horses.

A. R. ROJAS, THESE WERE THE VAQUEROS

Your horse learns that he can do anything you want him to do and he’s glad to do it; he’s ready to do it. You have set it up for him. You’ve never discouraged him, you’ve never belittled him, you’ve really bragged on him and his good qualities. When he did something wrong you didn’t make a big thing of it. You went along with him there, too, and showed him that wasn’t too good a thing to do—yet you didn’t criticize him or hammer on him. So, as time goes on from day to day, week to week, month to month, and year to year, I’ll grant you that you can build a friendship and something that’s unbelievable. Again, these horses are more sensitive than we can ever imagine. As we go along you’ll see how sensitive they are. You develop this sensitivity.

Let them use their keenness to show you how sensitive they are—to teach us.

R. HUNT, THINK HARMONY WITH HORSES

CONTENTS

Preface

INTRODUCTION

Studying Vaquero Horsemanship in the Southeastern United States and Beyond

CHAPTER 1

An Overview of Historical and Modern Vaquero Horsemanship

INTERLUDE 1

Joe Wolter and Curly

CHAPTER 2

Learning Vaquero Horsemanship: Motivations, Desire Lines, and Turning Points

INTERLUDE 2

Alicia Byberg-Landman and Marlin

CHAPTER 3

The Flexibility of Expertise and Apprenticeship in Vaquero Horsemanship

INTERLUDE 3

Bruce Sandifer and Mooney

CHAPTER 4

The Crossroads of Vaquero Horsemanship and Consumer Culture

INTERLUDE 4

Rodolfo Lara Sr. and Jefe

CHAPTER 5

The Philosophy of Modern Vaquero Horsemanship

INTERLUDE 5

Linda Hoover and Ally

CHAPTER 6

The Cultural Roots of Vaquero Horsemanship

INTERLUDE 6

Tom Curtin and Dusty

CHAPTER 7

A Virtual Gallop: Using Technology to Learn Vaquero Horsemanship

INTERLUDE 7

Kathleen Kelley, Red, and Twinkle Toes

CONCLUSION

Evolution, Blending, and a Hopeful Future

Appendix: Participants Identified by Name

Acknowledgments

References

Index

About the Author

PREFACE

Humans were meant to live with the horse.

(Erdrich, 2012, p. 26)

BACKING INTO VAQUERO HORSEMANSHIP

Angel campaigned, from early on, to remain with us. A 12-year-old Appaloosa mare, who looked like a sturdy sorrel quarter horse, she had been purchased as what horse trainers call a project. The plan was to train (I’ll return to why this is a problematic word later in this volume), or retrain, her and then to sell her for a profit, with the work done by a horseman who was my boyfriend at the time. I had little idea then that this plan would turn into a life-changing stay, both for her and for me. I would subsequently shift my life around to keep her with me and, later, alive (once she was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness).

When I met Angel, I had not been around horses since I was in third grade. We had relocated from Los Angeles to Benson, Arizona, and my parents’ friends, Tony and Milly, ranch and horse owners, had given me, homesick and lonely, a filly named Christmas for company. She was small enough to be approachable, and I felt wonder when around her. Since Christmas was so young, I was allowed to ride her mother. I remember my first ride vividly. Rather than being prefaced by anything as impractical as actual instruction, I was lifted onto a Western saddle and told by Tony, If you fall off, you have to walk back. You better hold on. I recall looking warily at the rural Arizona landscape: All of the sagebrush and cacti and sky looked the same. And the mare’s back seemed awfully far from the ground. I had too-long stirrups, no hold, and no fear—until she decided to bolt, and then I felt a new sort of fear, one shot through with exhilaration and possibility (perhaps this sort is a uniquely childlike and innocent fear, which Cixous [1998/2005] described as extremely pure since a child is able to believe absolutely in the danger, and then at the same time not to believe in it [p. 122]). When she’d had enough of our countryside tour, she headed back to the barn, with me still clutching on. What were you thinking? I would ask my mother as an adult, Weren’t you worried about my safety? You wanted to ride, she replied, and you were fine. Mamas always return to their babies. My mother had ridden in her youth along the riverbeds in Los Angeles and seemed to possess some sort of sketchy and unscientific faith in horses, in me, or both.

CROSSING PATHS WITH A SASSY ANGEL

Nearly thirty years later, I did not have horses on my mind and was instead busy being an academic in North Carolina. Work took up much of my energy and whatever was left went to the horse trainer/boyfriend, James (not his real name). We decided to look for a horse or two for him to work with, and so, using my research skills, I assisted. I was mostly motivated by wanting to help him, although surely my memories of a friendly filly and her fast mama influenced my willingness. Angel had been advertised online, but her ad had been pulled right after we saw it. The couple who owned her had lamented that those who were interested in buying her did not understand her. They were afraid that she would fall into abusive hands. As those who have spent time around mares know, they can be what we might politely call spirited, signifying that a mare might use her intelligence, her willfulness, and her physical strength to determine the course of things, which may or may not coincide with what you want to happen. When we first met her, she did indeed possess some sass. But she’s so damn sweet, James said.

Angel’s owners knew James and his reputation as a fair and kind trainer, and so a deal to sell her to us was struck. She would live at the farm (which I would have called a ranch, betraying my Western roots) that James leased. Angel looked like an adult Christmas, and this no doubt ignited some sort of sentimental spark in my brain. I was also worried about her going to an unfit home, a worry that would reoccur a few months later. Perhaps because my first close-up encounters were with mares, I respect them and admire their will. But I know they can be dangerous, so I was a spectator at the beginning with Angel; I was also not yet formally learning to ride. When I stated that she campaigned to remain with us, what I mean is that she did her best to be agreeable and to do whatever James asked of her, sass be damned. When I was nearby, she would come to stand next to me, just to keep me company, in that calm and personable way that some horses have. You will read below about my having to find a new home for Angel, and when I went to visit, after not seeing her for several weeks, I walked into her stall; she looked surprised and immediately turned to me and planted her muzzle over my heart, not moving for as long as I stood there. This is purely anecdotal of course, but I believe that horses who are happy in their homes strategize how to stay in those homes and with those owners, especially horses who have been moved around as Angel had.

As an aside, this kind of campaigning is not unique to Angel. While writing this book, I met a ranch owner and riding instructor, Heather, who has been trying to sell a gelding, Romeo, who should have been easy to place. He is sound and well-built, friendly, registered, and a pleasure to ride, and he just happened to find himself, a young horse, at a retirement ranch while waiting for his next home. Whenever anyone arrived to try him out, sometimes driving for hours, he would lock himself down and refuse to move with the rider. He is rather polite about it and does not buck or rear, but he would prefer not to go to a new and unknown home; he is just fine where he is, among the retired and well-cared for. Heather said she stared in absolute disbelief the first time he did it, as did her husband, watching from the house. As of this writing, he still lives at her ranch.

Several months into owning Angel, the relationship with James wound down, and the question of what to do with her and the other mare we had purchased surfaced. I was not attached to the other mare, and we sold her without incident. Angel was intelligent and scrappy, albeit reasonable (and sweet), and never belligerent or aggressive, and I fretted over what would become of her. Without specific proof to explain it, I had become attached to her and wanted to protect her. Those who fell in love with horses as children will understand how binding and mysterious an attachment it is, not necessarily rooted in reason; for those who did not, I suggest that you imagine that your first love was a creature likely at least twenty times your weight with extra-large, innocent eyes and covered in fur that you are allowed to pet, who could injure or kill you but chooses not to. That love holds fast—often for the duration of your life.

The challenge that came with keeping Angel was that I knew nothing about, or no one in, horse boarding in the area. But my graduate school advisor, Glynda Hull, is a lifelong horsewoman, and a call to her yielded a lengthy list of what to look for, and what to avoid, in home-hunting for horses. I remember taking extensive notes, and when Glynda paused, I assumed she was done until she said in that blessedly straightforward way that some horsepeople have, I’m not done yet. And you should look for … Soon after, I found a new place to board Angel.

Finding a physical home for Angel was one task, and the next one was what to actually do with her as she was still young and healthy at the time. I decided to start taking riding lessons with other horses. She was not a beginner’s horse, but she was my horse, and I was a beginner. Given that, I did not ride her until we were both ready, which was a couple of years later. Logic said to sell her, but I ignored it in favor of love, recognizable to the same horse-leaning heart I had when I was eight years old.

Angel and I remained together until a chronic illness, amyloidosis, took her after a five-year struggle against it; in the end, she died quickly and peacefully in my own pasture, having just been grazing, while I watched from the house, drinking my morning coffee. She had been present while I was learning to be an academic, a rough adjustment. Her presence and the world of horsemanship that she brought me into provided dependable and much-needed mental and emotional breaks; the ever-present honesty of horses can be a soul-saving antidote to thorny human interaction.

A CURIOUS SPECTATOR

The phrase horse whisperer has become part of our modern cultural lexicon, popularized through a movie, based on Nicholas Evans’s (1995) book. Although, as Bennett (1998) asserted, the roots of the concept likely go back to the beginning of horse-human communication (p. 43). Even if a romantic story has helped to promote and commercialize the phrase, the concept behind it is tied to theories of animal behaviorism. Temple Grandin (2009) believes that

the real secret of horse whisperers and expert horsemen is that they understand the behaviors associated with different emotional states and they have also figured out that a reward or cue has to be given within one second after a desired behavior occurs for the horse to make the association. Expert horse trainers understand the horses’ emotions, instinctual natural behavior patterns, and the principles of behavioral training. (p. 124)

The most well-known horse whisperer (although it is more accurate to say that he trains people), as well as the inspiration and consultant for the film The Horse Whisperer, is Buck Brannaman, who himself, according to his website, practices a horsemanship based on classical concepts from the California vaquero tradition.

Once I had Angel settled in, I heard about one of Buck’s clinics happening in Clemson, South Carolina, and that the public could pay a spectator fee to listen and watch each of the three days. I drove back and forth each day from Charlotte and sat in the stands, taking notes as only a nerdy academic can (i.e., as if I were being judged on it). While observing those three days, I noticed what would become the motivation for this project. While Buck coached his riders, I observed that many of them looked to me like the Mexican and Mexican American cowboys of my youth, as the daughter of a Latinx mother growing up in Southern California. These participants were dressed and had gear that, to me, seemed out of geographical—and cultural—contexts, although I was admittedly ignorant about the horse world at that time. While there are, materially, items that cowboys and vaqueros might have in common, the distinctions in tack signify connections to certain styles of horsemanship; what these southeastern riders signified, to me at the time, has its roots across a significant distance. Therefore, this project began with wonderings (that later turned into research questions, which I share in the introduction): Is Vaquero horsemanship geographically and culturally specific? Does it, or can it, transcend both? What makes up this particular style of horsemanship, and how and why has it traveled? These musings themselves were a branch of a pragmatic need to find a language with which to communicate with Angel. I had both an honest interest in, and a scholarly curiosity about, what I learned was called Vaquero horsemanship. In this volume, I aim to tell you some of the story of modern Vaquero horsemanship, which has become a hybridized form of itself now that it has left its historical, cultural, and geographical contexts.

INTRODUCTION

Studying Vaquero Horsemanship in the Southeastern United States and Beyond

These stories are not the science of animals; they are what we use to understand the importance of animals in our lives. (Rothfels, 2014, p. 11)

As Vaquero horsemanship (VH) has become hybridized over time, this book is also a hybrid: My background in literacy and language education frames this study, but, mindful of the horses at the heart of this work, this is also very much about VH and the human-horse connection that it can encourage and nurture. Even though this project has from the beginning been an academic study combined with passionate personal interest, in the process of writing this, Vaquero horsemanship itself, as I learned more about it, enlarged my original ideas and intentions; one example of this is widening the interviewee pool to include mentors mentioned by southeastern participants.

My initial curiosity about this style of Western horsemanship (as I shared in the preface), which historically began in what is now California (before it was part of the United States) and has now spread worldwide, led to an inquiry into how technology and digital literacies affected the learning of Vaquero horsemanship. Although this would be one research question I had, the project itself then grew to be a collection of stories about learning VH more generally. As a literacy researcher, I have a persistent interest in expanded definitions of literacy beyond school-based reading and writing. In a sense, this project is also about literacy stories—if you take literacy to include learning how to read horses and how to author your own identity as a VH practitioner. Building upon my curiosity and interests, I describe, in this introduction, how I designed this project, bearing in mind that my audience may include fellow education and literacy scholars (including those who study adult learning in community contexts) as well as those with a more general interest in horsemanship and horse culture. My goal has been to make this volume accessible, language- and concept-wise, so that it might appeal to an audience beyond my own academic peers.

STUDY DESIGN

Theoretical Framework

The framework for this project is a sociocultural one (Vygotsky, 1978) guided by the assumption that learning is conceived of as always being situated in participation (Lewis et al., 2007, p. 16), a participation that is a complex process that combines doing, talking, thinking, feeling, and belonging (Wenger, 1998, p. 56). Relatedly, "practice is about meaning as an experience of everyday life (p. 52; italics in original). Barton and Hamilton’s (1998) sketching out of vernacular literacy practices, which are rooted in everyday experience and serve everyday purposes (p. 251), is particularly helpful in understanding the learning of horsemanship within a sociocultural context. In this project, what is learned in collaboration with more capable peers" (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86) includes horses, although their experiences are interpreted by their human partners; this is an inclusion Vygotsky might have found suspicious, although participants very much feel that horses are their more knowledgeable teachers.

My own education and previous scholarship has been heavily influenced by New Literacy Studies (NLS), which Gee (2000) defined as based on the view that reading and writing only make sense when studied in the context of social and cultural (and we can add historical, political and economic) practices of which they are but a part (p. 180). NLS includes

social practices in which literacy has a role; hence the basic unit of a social theory of literacy is that of literacy practices…. In the simplest sense literacy practices are what people do with literacy…. This includes people’s awareness of literacy, constructions of literacy and discourses of literacy, how people talk about and make sense of literacy. These are processes internal to the individual; at the same time, practices are the social processes which connect people with one another, and they include shared cognition represented in ideologies and social identities. (Barton & Hamilton, 2000, pp. 7–8)

The NLS approach has lent a generosity of definition to subsequent literacy scholarship: My conception of literacy includes the learning of a socially situated sort of horsemanship and some of the accompanying social, cultural, historical, political, and economic influences on that learning; therefore, throughout this volume, I refer to horsemanship practices. In line with Barton and Hamilton’s characterization, participants have narrated their personal journeys as well as depicted the social bonds and shared understandings that have been created as part of learning Vaquero horsemanship. They studied the Discourse (Gee, 1996) of Vaquero horsemanship, which then helped them to revise their own identities so that they would be recognized by fellow practitioners of the same style of horsemanship (Lewis et al., 2007, p. 20). In participants’ lives, of course, labels that categorize different sorts of literacy, or horsemanship for that matter, do not necessarily matter much in the live messiness of existence.

In the Vaquero Horse Gear section of his Vaquero Heritage, when Ernest Morris (2014) described the making of a reata [a braided rawhide rope], he began by stating that the rawhide is braided into a special weaving pattern, typically with four, six, or eight ‘strands’ and that rawhide braiding is both a skill and an art (p. 85). I have done some theoretical braiding myself in this volume: In addition to the sociocultural foundations of this study, I have also turned to animal studies, cultural studies, and philosophy to illuminate the findings of each chapter (Barton and Hamilton [1998] noted that literacy studies is essentially an interdisciplinary endeavour [p.18]). While I have tried to be skillful, I ask for the reader’s understanding that this is also an artistic endeavor, with human subjectivity woven in, and not an objective scientific report. I have turned to theoretical concepts and ideas that I felt would help tell the stories of this project and convey the braided realities of those living this kind of horsemanship.

Research Questions and Participants

My overarching research question was, how and why are horsepeople in the southeastern United States learning and practicing Vaquero horsemanship? My subquestions were: (1) Which significant learning experiences did participants identify as part of their development? (2) What motivated them to pursue this style of horsemanship? (3) How did participants conceive of expertise in VH? (4) How has consumer culture affected their practice of VH? (5) How do participants describe their horsemanship philosophy? (6) How would participants describe the cultural and historical roots of VH? and (7) What role did technology play in their learning journeys? Each chapter attempts to address these questions. In my own modest way, I add a response to Birke’s (2014) call for better ways in which relationships between humans and nonhumans, as processes of communication and interconnecting, might be studied (p. 50).

My primary method in this qualitative project was ethnographic interviewing. There are two groups of interviewees in this project: the first group in the southeastern United States and the second group of mentors as well as two who provided historical context. In the first group, I interviewed 26 horse professionals (12 females and 12 males) and two amateur riders (both female) who resided in North and South Carolina, Georgia, Virginia, or Tennessee. This group consisted of those who self-identified as studying or having been influenced by Vaquero horsemanship. Because this was a convenience sample, these participants are not representative of those who study, or follow, VH in the southeastern United States or elsewhere. Some in this group chose to use their real names and so are identified initially by their full names and generally thereafter by their first names and initials of last names (and if mentioned repeatedly in the same paragraph, sometimes just first names are used after initial identification). Pseudonyms consisting of first names only (no initials) are used for anonymous participants. I refer to southeastern participants in this way so that the reader can easily identify them. Appendix A contains the full names of participants who consented to using their real names.

The second group of participants included those who had been specifically mentioned by the first group as having been influential as they learned VH (all but one responded to my request for an interview); interviewees in this group are (in alphabetical order): Buck Brannaman, Mike Bridges, Tom Curtin, Cody Deering, Greg Eliel, Rodolfo Lara Sr., Bryan Neubert, Bruce Sandifer, Gwynn Turnbull, and Joe Wolter. Ricky Quinn and Jaton Lord also represent the next generation of this approach to horsemanship. Lastly, author and historian Bill Reynolds provided some California history about VH, and Melanie Smith Taylor (Olympic gold medalist in show jumping) spoke with me about being an early sponsor, along with her late husband, of Ray Hunt’s clinics in the southeastern United States. Although this is obviously not a how-to book, I do include the full names of mentors so that the reader who desires to can further investigate this style of horsemanship. Some of the southeastern participants may also be available for lessons, workshops, and/or clinics so the interested reader is encouraged to reach out.

I tried to include as many women as men in this study, although in the second group of interviewees, I was limited to who the first group had cited. Sánchez (1995) noted that, After secularization [in present-day California], certain women would take charge of a great deal of the production on the small ranches and become notable riders and farmers (p. 211). However, their names may be lost to us; Rojas (2010) included the names of eight skilled ladies-on-horseback among a list of 382 male vaqueros (p. 244). No doubt there were more vaqueras then—and many now.

Throughout this volume, I refer to those included in this study as participants, interviewees, practitioners, and educators. Rather than use the word trainer (which many participants made a point of dismissing), I employ the word educator. This came from some of the participants themselves as they feel that VH is horse-centered, which makes trainer, with its traditional connotations of harsher, human-centered methods, undesirable. Additionally, participants are schooling humans as much, if not more, than horses. As a veteran educator (of people) myself, I recognized in participants that earnest wish to make the lives of those you work with, human or not, fairer.

Data Collection and Analysis

Analysis requires that a knot be undone. (Serres, 2016, p. 79)

The first group of participants were interviewed in person with one exception during the pandemic (via Zoom). The second group of participants were interviewed either in person or over the phone. In both groups, I chose semistructured interviewing in an attempt to make better use of the knowledge-producing potentials of dialogue by allowing much more leeway for following up on whatever angles are deemed important by the interviewee (Brinkmann, 2015, p. 286). Participants were encouraged to speak freely in response to a given question and also to steer the conversation in a desired direction, which often resulted in rambling, wily, everyday stories (de Certeau, 1984, p. 89). Geertz (2000) stated that the methodology of anthropological fieldwork involves, not surprisingly, working from the inside out: To discover who people think they are, what they think they are doing, and to what end they think they are doing it, it is necessary to gain a working familiarity with the frames of meaning within which they enact their lives (p. 16); my goal was to explore these tenets in the context of participants as practitioners, to varying degrees, of VH. Once interviews were completed, they were then transcribed professionally. To supplement my interviews, I also took field notes immediately after conducting them and reviewed them while writing my findings.

To begin my analysis, I conducted an open coding (Corbin & Strauss, 2015) of all interviews to identify possible themes and patterns of response; these gave me initial insight into how participants conceive of VH and of its significance to them. Interviews were then placed into atlas.ti for descriptive coding (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018) as this can lead to a well-indexed compendium of contents from multiple interviews (p, 217). In order to focus on only relevant text (p. 215), all quotations relating to the most dominant themes were collected, along with interviewee identifiers, into a Word document for the second round of coding. I then identified the following subthemes within each topic (Saldaña & Omasta, 2018) and grouped quotations accordingly. This volume consists of the dominant themes, and subthemes, of this study, accompanied by descriptive narration to illustrate each aspect. But, as Serres (2016) noted, [a]nalysis requires that a knot be undone (p. 79). Even though I have unknotted the themes in order to present my findings (which is, in a sense, the opposite of the theoretical weaving that I have done), there are places of overlap throughout: Speaking about what motivates you to study VH