Riding in lightness, collection on a loose rein, working the reata - these are some of the things that make up the horsemanship called Californio. Californio Style Horsemanship is how a rider might express the skills of the caballeros that came to the New World. It comes from roots that also spawned the Spanish Riding School and other classical dressage schools of Europe. It is descendant from the horsemanship of the fighting man and the nobleman (caballero or knight) of Portugal and Spain but evolved in the coastal foothills and central valleys of Alta California. It grew in a time when mañana was operative, whether moving cattle, training a colt or braiding a new set of reins. It is a lifestyle of the horseman from a time when a lightening quick response from your horse could mean the difference between life and death.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no official definition of a cowboy, a vaquero or a buckaroo. A Californio is generally accepted to be a person born in the region now known as the State of California (Alta California of old) in the period following discovery and exploration and ending when the United States wrested control from Mexico. The local definitions of vaquero/buckaroo change a little bit for each community, all the way from San Diego to the northern reaches of Washington state and across the breadth of the Great Basin country of Nevada, Idaho and Montana. Furthermore, every hundred years or so even the local definitions somehow get adapted as families and horsemen come and go. The use of the snaffle, which was brought in with the Texans, is an example of the flux under which Californio Style Horsemanship had evolved.

The Californio discussion group, hosted at Yahoo groups and moderated by Bob Sagely, and this web site, will try to educate folks about the Old Californio traditions, particularly the equestrian ways of the vaqueros, amansadores and the arreindadores. While honoring the contributions of generations past, any new definitions will attempt to capture the flavor of the Californio, even if some of the ingredients are not entirely true to historical fact.

In it's most refined form the Californio rider is costumed in the vaquero (Californio) tradition. The tack is made of  leather, rawhide, iron, copper and silver - resources that flourished (in the cattle and horses that multiplied readily on the grasslands of these regions) or were found in abundance in the land of sunshine. The horse was quintessential in this land of plenty, the tool of the stockman trades and a key to survival. But the horse was more than this too. It was a symbol of wealth, gentlemanliness, power over the indigenous peoples (though the dictates of economics soon changed that) and those who rode well held a special place in the community over those who did not.

The horse of the Californio bridle tradition holds his head up similar to the dressage horse but first and foremost it was a mount with a job to do. The job was varied, from the excitement of charging at full speed carrying a fighting lancer or roping a grizzly bear or wild mustang to the more complacent work of trailing cattle or getting from Point A to Point B . The jaquíma used for starting the young horse has a lineage deep into equestrian history. The spade bit, for the "finished" horse, is a distinctive tool of this tradition, with some historians claiming its development to have occurred in Alta California during the heyday of the vaquero culture. Other bit styles are present throughout the world of the bridle horse tradition but many consider the spade to be an ultimate expression of true horsemanship, on the rider and the horse's part.

The horse is not started under saddle until four years or more and is moved along with what is appropriate for the horse and it's level of training - with the single most important feature that the reins are held slack and collection is maintained on a loose rein.

Please feel free to join in and participate in the development of this website by contributing articles or resources/links from the WWW about this form of horsemanship. Contact Bob by email: sagehorseman at sagehorsemanship.com

The background picture for this page and the Santa Barbara Bit article comes from the Mark Kohler Studio and is used with permission. Please give his site a visit at www.markkohlerstudio.com