Let’s hear it for the little ladies from California

Sunday afternoon, and the air is clear, the sky is blue, and the traffic is light as we point our car down the Pan American highway toward Mexico City. We are off on a search for equestrian excellence in the dusty, hot exurbia west of Oaxaca.
We are four gringos living in the city, looking for a performance ring in the country where, we have been told, some of the best of Mexico’s female Charros (cowboys) will be performing. As we pass along the highway, we are rewarded by spotting a sign for which we have been diligently scanning the roadside: “Lienza de Charro” (Charro ring), with an arrow to the right.

We pull off on a bumpy dirt track over what appear to be abandoned fields, and proceed for about a mile. We top a small rise, and there it is: some stables, some corrals, a parking area, and a performance ring about 50 to 60 yards across with a set of concrete grandstands at the far end, and a hundred yards of entryway at the near side. We park the car and walk to the grandstand, passing riders and a cook-tent and portapotties on the way.

We are early, naturally: we gringos are always early. In spite of our 10 years here, we remain compulsive about starting times, something our neighbors find strange, if not hilarious. We pick our seats in the front row and settle down to wait for the festivities to begin. The hawkers selling nuts and seeds, beer and sandwiches and popcorn laced with chili sauce start circulating.

Today is Saturday, and the tournament (complete with prizes and medals) runs today and tomorrow. Teams have been invited from all over the country. Most have been chosen by an elimination tournament in their home state. Tomorrow is the men’s turn. Today is for the women.

Women have been performing in Charro rings since the earliest days. Usually, their groups have taken their place between performances by the men’s teams. This tournament is different: the women are to have the entire day to themselves and this is the first national competition for women to be held in Oaxaca.

Women’s Charro teams are called Escaramuzas, and these teams are young (from 12 to 35, mostly in their 20s), poised and brilliantly dressed in electric blues, greens, reds and pinks (and one team wearing grey gabardine suits), their dresses sporting wide skirts and lots of ribbons and embroidery. All Escaramuzas sit side-saddle.
Their horses are relatively small and impeccably groomed. While I am not very knowledgeable about horseflesh, it seems clear that these are exceptional animals, with well-defined muscles and graceful movements. Of course, they are trained to a fine point and show a combination of obedience and awareness that one can’t help but notice.

When the trumpet blows, the head of the pageant—an old Charro with a magnificently erect posture and a handlebar moustache from here to Tuesday on his lip—enters the ring from the top of the approach runway on a huge palomino, carrying the national flag. He is accompanied by an honor guard which includes a representative of the Governor, and two women, one the national and the other the state president of the Escaramuza movement.

After the inevitable speeches of welcome and thank you, the teams are announced. They parade into the ring and take their bows. Then a special announcement: this is not merely a national tourney. Will the delegation from California, USA, please stand and take a bow. From a side stand where the band sits, they do so.

There are two parts to an Escaramuza competition. The first part consists of running a horse full tilt from the top of the entry strip into the ring, where a rectangle is drawn in the dirt. The object is to stop the horse within the rectangle, having crossed the near line before braking. Braking consists of getting the horse to sit down with all four feet forward, not a natural sort of thing for a horse to do. Three or four competitors from each six-person team take part in this activity.

The second part consists of executing a few standard exercise maneuvers. One maneuver is dividing the ring into four corners, and crossing the horses from one side to the other, all at once. It’s very much like the June Taylor Dancers, except on horseback at full speed. The finale is having the horses line up side by side, from the center of the ring out to the wall, and then running them in a circle, as fast as they can while keeping the line straight. Sort of like a second hand sweeping around a watch face, and far more difficult than it appears to the observer.

We are thinking of leaving, having seen several groups, what with the sun and the hard concrete seats (next time, bring a pillow), when the announcer proclaims “and now, the group from California, USA.” We decide to stay and watch. In every part of their performance, they are brilliant, apparently flawless. All their runners stop within the proscribed rectangle. Their exercise patterns are more intricate than most, and their line is near perfect. When they are done, we decide to leave.

Near our car, there is a clump of the California Escaramuzas hanging out and shooting the breeze. Diana stops to ask them where they are from. We are told they are mostly from middle California, in scattered communities from San Jose to Sacramento, and that they board their horses together at a convenient (only to the car-enslaved Californians would a two-hour ride be considered convenient) farm.

“Pretty expensive, bringing them all the way down here, eh?” I ask. “Oh, no,” says one young woman (they are all in their teens, all from Mexican American families). “We couldn’t afford to do that. We just borrowed our horses from the other groups”.

We leave with an even deeper appreciation for the skill and training of the performers we have seen: that a group of horsewomen from California, most of whom do not speak Spanish, could simply borrow strange horses and ride them so magnificently in a ring they had not seen until that day speaks volumes about them and their borrowed mounts.

Slightly sunburned, a little dehydrated and ready for a beer at the Zócalo, we bounce and jounce our way back to the highway. We admit to ourselves and each other that seeing a good “home team” performance contributed to our good mood.

Stan Gotlieb lives in and writes from Oaxaca, Mexico. He maintains a website, “Oaxaca, Mexico: an Expatriate Experience” www.realoaxaca.com and publishes a twice-monthly Newsletter about Oaxaca and Mexico. To send him an e-mail, go to his site.