Western Roots

Western riding is not simply a style of riding.

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It is the living imprint of a history stretching across more than five centuries, a history of conquest and hard labor, of cattle and dust, of men on horseback who quite literally shaped a continent.

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Every movement in this way of riding carries the memory of a concrete need. The saddle horn exists because a roper had to wrap his rope around it after catching a calf. Chaps protected the legs from the thorns of the chaparral. Neck reining was born of the need to guide a horse with a single hand, the other holding the rope. Nothing is decorative. Everything comes from the field. This is a way of riding built on function long before it was ever a sport, and that is exactly what makes it unique.

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Its story crosses continents and eras. It begins in medieval Spain, where two equestrian traditions forged by the Reconquista existed side by side. It carries on across the haciendas of New Spain, where the figure of the vaquero, the first cowboy, was born. It splits into two rival schools, Californian and Texan, whose tension still runs through the practice today. It knows its epic age during the great cattle drives that followed the Civil War, before turning into spectacle with the rodeo, then into a codified sport recognized around the world. And all along this journey, one thread never breaks: the partnership between man and horse, in the service of working cattle.

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From the sands of Al-Andalus to the arenas of the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas, from Mexican mustangs to competition Quarter Horses, from the remote ranches of Montana to the riding halls of Europe and Switzerland: this is the story of western riding.