Mexican rodeo traces noble lineage of the West

“For nearly three hours, cowboys, clowns, matadors, folkloric dancers and little buckaroos entertained us. There were little kids who rode sheep during the mutton-bustin event. Two matadors, one from Venezuela and another from Mexico, showed off their skills and bravery, even in hot-pink stockings. But at one point the bull took over the ring, refusing to head back to the stockyard. It took seven men pulling on a rope lassoed to one of his horns to yank him in.

From the applause and camera flashes you could tell the audience respected the vaqueros in front of us, descendants of the original cowboys. As history tells us, the tradition of herding cattle on horseback came from the Spanish who brought it to New Spain now Mexico and parts of the American West and the first cowboys in the Americas were mostly indigenous people. From there, the rodeo – which comes from the Spanish rodear, which means to round up – was born.”

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