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Well, not quite 1500 horses and the equivalent number of bombacha and boina clad gauchos, but a smaller version of some of the local horse and cattle men.
Why? Explanations from the tourist office, when all horse events were called off one day before their start: the weather forecast is for heavy rains, later...the footing in the show grounds is too muddy (not true), the dirt roads leading from the various ranches are too deeply steeped in mud for horse trailers to get through (not true, as many participants and their animals come by highway from many provinces of Argentina.
The locals had other versions of the delay: lousy municipal management, Mafia involvement, never happened before in the entire history of the Dia de Tradicion, citizens are angry as all their perishable supplies brought in for the expected onslaught of people is going into the garbage and out of their pocket books, visitors having come here from all over the world or - one could say - slightly annoyed.
But - the weather is glorious, not a raincloud in the sky, meadows just dry enough to to raise dust...so one makes do with what is left of the performances
Here a few local gauchos demonstrate the skill of forming a 'tropilla' a little troupe of horses that are the tools of the trade for a gaucho. |
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| Horses are trained to follow a madrina, always a mare with loving temperament, so the 'suitors' are more willing to follow her, and her bell. Once the bell comes off, the little herd reverts to grazing. |
| As there are no fences and tie up post in the open Pampas, where the gauchos work their cattle herds, the tropilla idea is very practical. By night a rider knows where his herd is grazing by the sound of the bell, even ringing of the bell signifies that the herd is quiet. Tropillas are of the same colour, so a gaucho has an easier time to find his outfit amongst a whole lot of 'tropillas' |
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A Gaucho is not defined by his 'pilchas', his clothing, the soft high boots, the flat hat or boina, the tirador (coin and silver encrusted belt, the wide bombachas (pants) with button up ankles. It is a social strata and a cultural segment of society, mostly poor, many not highly educated, for a long time considered vagabonds, and expendable peons easily replaced, when things went wrong. They also were herded up like slaves to participate in various Argentine civil wars. But the tradition survives, as cattle is herded and grown on open pampas grass on vast expanses of flat land. The more cattle a estanciero has, the more gaauchos he employs.
Note the larga 'facon' gaucho knife, carried even by this pint sized rider
And they start young with this work. By the time they are eight or thereabouts many of the young gauchos have already trained their own tropillas and participate in cattle work. |
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| The loneliness and remoteness of the Pampas requires that horses are well looked after and cared for, as being 'a patas' on foot, means being out of work. Horses are not easily replaced out there in the wide open spaces |
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| A strong and beautiful breed, that tends to be a one-rider horse, they are beautiful to behold |
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| Gauchos work with cattle to heard them, they lasso them to butcher them, or medicate them or castrate them. |
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| Demonstration of cattle herding and lassoing. Even there, care must be taken, not to injure any cattle, as calfs, cows and bulls and beef are all mingled together. A loss of a cow is a great financial loss for the estanciero |
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| The youngsters know how to sit a horse, steer it by even the slightest weight shift, and make the whole difficult work look like a 'kid's game' |
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| A perfectly attired horse and rider |
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| Some absolutely classy looking Criollo horses around, noble faces and good lines |
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| Cattle has horns, none of them are dehorned, which makes working with them at close quarters a very dangerous undertaking. For a time estancieros tried to develop a strain whose horns would curve inward like a half moon, but nature was not to be messed with, and the impressive horns have a wide and dangerous reach. |
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| The last calf out of the pen... |
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Gauchos have no 'saddles' as such, structures with wooden trees and hard edges. Again a very practical consideration, a very hard saddle could break if a horse falls on it, and worse, it could injure the animals. Hence, saddles, which are called 'recados' are a collection of several layers of skins, blankets and more skins with a barely noticeable leather top, where the girth is attached. If a gaucho loses his saddle in the pampas, no stores to buy a new one or make wooden structure repairs, and he is 'a patas' again.
The gaucho uses his recado as a working tool, a storage for his 'camp bed', usually several sheep skins and thick hand woven blankets, storage of his personal belongings, which apart from a poncho and his knife are indeed few. |
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| An estanciero watching his gauchos work. Gauchos 'survived' off the pampas, and mostly ate - and still do - meat. As there is no refrigeration when on a cattle drive, only small feral sheep or other wild animals were caught either by lasso or boleados (three leather covered stones on braided leather ropes), in order to BB Q them quickly, and have no left over food to spoil.
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Despite the unfortunate suspension of the Grand Rodeo, Tropilla performance and horse taming events normally involving hundreds of horses and lasting two days, a small very much appreciated consolation prize.
