About LOS PRIMEROS Documentary in the VAQUERO SERIES

VAQUERO FIVE BUY NOW

THE SEVEN-DVD SET SERIES

#1 TAPADERO
Californios

#2 THE REMUDA
Buckaroos

#3 HOLO HOLO PANIOLO
Hawaiian Cowboys

#4 HOULIHAN
Northern Range Cowboys

#5 LOS PRIMEROS
The First Vaqueros

#6 TIERRA ENCANTADO
New Mexico Cowboys

#7 MULA
The Old Spanish Trail

EVENTS & SCREENINGS

SCENES FROM LOS PRIMEROS
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Vaquero horsemanship. When the Moors invaded Spain they brought along their agile a jinete riding style. The Spaniards adopted this and applied it on their Andulusian horses. This was the genesis of Vaquero horsemanship.

John St. Ryan demonstrates the garrocha. In Spain, they don't rope cattle, instead they control them with a 13-foot lance called a garrocha. This came from the medieval knights who used lances to do battle with the Moorish invaders.

The Mexican open range. Charro Ernesto Vega explains the methods Vaqueros used on the open range — from tailing steers at full gallop (coleada), to reinsmanship (cala de caballo), to jumping on a wild mustang from a galloping horse (paso de muerte). Today these events featured in the charreada.

The Mexican ranching hacienda. In the early days of Mexico, the hacienda was a self-sufficent village where patron, vaqueros, workers and livestock lived within its protective walls. It was here, the traditions of handling cattle on the open range developed.

Branding at the Five Dot.
With reata in hand and his finely trained horse, Gabe Williams heads out to the branding pen. In a ritual going back to early rancho days, he's here to do a job in the style that earned him the title "Californio."