Some American Riders by Colonel Theodore Ayrault Dodge

American Riders - Page 2

But the cowboy is unequalled in his own province, and this is enough of fame. His seat is astonishing. It is a common feat for him to put a playing-card on the saddle, or a dollar piece under each foot in the stirrup, or under his knees, and ride a vigorous bucker. Still he cannot ride a flat saddle until he learns the trick of it. And while no cowboy, without serving his apprenticeship in the hunting-field, would hold his own with practiced riders there, it is certain that he would much sooner learn to ride across country well than even the best of cross-country men could vie with him in controlling a vicious bronco, or, indeed, in riding over the rough country he is wont to cover. It is the universal experience of the Plains that the best English rider fights shy of ground which the cowboy will gallop over until he catches on to it, and confides in the sure feet of his little mount. Some men never learn to ride; but it stands to reason, ceteris paribus, that the man who makes riding his business will be a stouter horseman than one to whom it is a mere diversion.

Bucking Bronco, Frederic Remington, 1908.

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As a rough rider the cowboy is facile princeps [easily the best]; as a horse-breaker, he devotes too little time to his task, nor does he go to work in the way best calculated to produce a quiet nag. Bronco busting is a distinct art. The bronco buster may be a professional, who has originally taken up the work to replenish his exchequer, depleted by whiskey and poker, and sticks to it for lack of an easier job, and because he is at low-water mark; or he may be a cow-puncher in slack times. As a rule, he cannot stick it out very long, for the business is sure to end by busting the buster. It is unquestionably the most violent form of athletics, and the bronco buster, though he must be strong and active, is not, as a rule, in the exceptional condition necessary for great feats of strength and endurance. Indeed, training would scarcely help him much. Whatever his strength and health, the bronco buster is sure to get hurt sooner or later. He works it off and on at ten dollars a bronco. All cowboys do more or less breaking, and some ranches always break their own ponies, and generally have better ones for so doing.

The typical bronco buster should weigh a hundred and seventy or a hundred and eighty pounds. Weight does the business when a light man can accomplish nothing, though one of the most successful bronco riders of whom the writer ever heard was a long-geared, lank Texas lad, who would stick to his horse till his head would snap like a whip with the bucking, and he himself lose consciousness. Indeed, it is not uncommon for violent bucking to produce hemorrhage of the lungs. Few cowboys but get hurt one way or another at intervals. There is no creature in the service of man which can put his master to such violent efforts in his subjugation as the bronco. Of course a better plan would be the more gradual one of civilized trainers, but for this there is no time.

The whole secret of "busting” (the word is advisedly used, as picturesquely expressive of the process, in contradistinction to breaking) lies in completely exhausting the bronco at the first lesson; he will never buck for keeps more than once. Buffalo Bills ponies have been allowed to throw their riders, or the rider has judiciously slipped off at the right intervals, thus impressing the idea on the broncos intelligence that he can surely throw his man if he sticks long enough to his bucking. But once ridden to the verge of falling in his tracks, the pony will not do his level worst again, but content himself with grunting and yelling, knocking his teeth out, and playing the devil generally. The buster must be careful to keep well away from sheds and timber, and have room enough to cut a wide swath.

He must be able to stick to his saddle like a leech, with or without stirrups. If, indeed, he needs his stirrups for a hold, he is not looked on as much of a rider; and it is a matter of pride with the sure enough buster not to rely on anything but what old horsemen call glue. To show his contempt for the broncos power, he will ply the quirt at every jump. It is a fair fight and no favor between man and beast.

Bronco Buster, Erwin E. Smith, 1907.

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But the buster has been there before, and knows exactly what he is about; the bronco is new to the business, and though he invariably makes a good fight, he is sure to have to give in. Some ponies take more busting than others, and some always buck more or less, however well broken. In fact, when the punchers turn out of a cold morning, the ponies will buck through the entire outfit, and the crowd stands around to see each man mount, watch the fun, and chaff the rider.

Two rides will usually bust a bronco so that the average cow-puncher can use him, but he would scarcely keep company long with most Central Park riders. Two men generally work together. They enter the corral, where there is apt to be a good bunch of ponies; and these, as if guessing what is to come, at once jump away, and go careering madly around the enclosure. One man handles the rope, which he trails along the ground until he selects his pony, and then, with a sudden and dexterous snap, drags it over his head.

A good roper can cast twenty-five feet. Then both men seize hold, dig their heels into the ground to stop the pony -- knack will enable even one man to jerk him up, if need be -- and finally get a turn round the snubbing-post in the centre of the corral. There they have the pony fast, and they gradually work him up to it. But the pony does not submit to this vigorous coaxing in any amiable mood. He bucks and plunges, kicks and squeals, and charges straight at his tormentors, who have to play a regular game of hide-and-seek behind the snubbing-post to save them from broken bones. Finally the men get the winded pony snubbed up close to the post, where one can hold him while the other gets behind him and catches another rope on a forward foot. Then, as the pony starts, he yanks the foot back, and in nine cases out of ten down goes the pony. But not always. Some obstinate ones will sink on the other knee, and with the nose on the ground still have four points to stand on. But by-and-by down he must; the snubbing-rope is made fast, the saddle is fitted on tant bien que mal [as best one can] , the cincha worked under, and the whole made fast. Some times it is difficult to get a hit in the pony’s mouth, and they put on a hackamore, which is a halter-like rope arrangement, a sort of Rarey hitch, with an extra twist round his jaw, instead. Then the second rope is loosed and the pony is let up, still held by the snubbing-post rope. This is gradually loosened so as to let the pony have a little fun all to himself, which lie is sure to do, bucking round in a pretty lively fashion for twenty minutes or half an hour to rid himself of the saddle, despite the choking of the rope. This takes the feather-edge off him, and he will end up his play covered with foam and quite a bit tired. Some extra vigorous busters ride the pony right off, but the more judicious prefer to let him tire himself out first. When this is done, the pony is gradually worked out on the prairie, and may perhaps have to be thrown again to cinch him up and get ready for the ride. To keep him down while the rider gets ready, the other man sits on his head, and the rider puts aside his six-shooter and hat and coat and everything superfluous, but keeps his spurs and quirt. Then he seizes the saddle and gets his foot in the stirrup, the pony is gradually unwound, and the instant he reaches his feet the buster is in the saddle. It is incredible how active these men can be. Then the real fun begins, and the rider and pony go at it in earnest. The other man sometimes goes along on another horse, with a rope to catch the pony if things work wrong; but he is a wall-flower, and takes no part in the dancing. It is pretty rough sport. The pony may be a running bucker, or may stand stock-still and buck in place at unexpected intervals; he may buck over a bank; he may buck and pitch a somersault forward; he may rear and fall over backward. The rider wants both to stick to his pony and be ready to vault off in short measure if essential. He uses all the legs nature has given him, stirrup or no stirrup, and lashes his pony at every rise with all his might. The suaviter in modo [gentle in manner] is absolutely sunk in the fortiter in re [resolute in execution]. When the pony rises, the trick is to get away from the cantle, and the heavy buster has a fashion when the pony comes down of settling himself in his seat with a hard jolt and an "Ugh!” a thing which soon tires out the little fellow, which weighs barely four times as much as the man, and is working a dozen times as hard. One way or other the pony will keep his resistance up for a certain length of time, according to disposition; but in a couple of hours he will be ridden down. Unless he gets his rider into a snarl, and thus earns a let up, he will be so played out that he will go along pretty quietly, with but slight attacks of his bucking fever. He has found his master, and he knows it. One more ride will be the final polish of his primary-schooling. The kindergartening has been omitted. The second ride will be a repetition of the first in a slightly modified and less dangerous form. After this the pony is considered "busted;” but his grammar-schooling he gets from the cowboys use. He never reaches the high or normal school, let alone the college; but he has a knack of educating himself, and the amount of information and skill he will pick up of his own accord at cow-punching is wonderful. He of course is taught to guide by the neck, and he twists and turns in the performance of his duties with extraordinary intelligence and quickness; but a good deal of what he does is not so much taught by an educational process as picked up by repetition of the same work, which, after all, is the only way a horse ever learns.

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Cutting out from the herd in 1907.

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