Scenes from LOS PRIMEROS - THE FIRST VAQUEROS..
The roots of the American cowboy run deep, all the way back to Spain. Mexico and Alta California. DVD is 98 minutes.

Vaquero horsemanship and its beginnngs in Spain. 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). These are some of the events now 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."