Got some catching up to do. Worked this morning on a couple things:
Daily Whip Out: "Ojos de Gringo Portrait"
Old pulps were kind of masterful in a gawdawful way. Check this out:
Buzzard Bait, Indeed!
Check out those great hats and the guns are rendered with some excellence. Thanks Chris Casey. Also, speaking of lower California:
"The Baja Hinny"
One of the things I'm studying and researching for my "Mexicali Stud" project is—vaquero horsemanship—and the guy who knew that subject backwards and forward was the late, great Tom Lea, who wrote "The Wonderful Country." He also wrote another classic, "The Hands of Cantu," which I'm currently rereading, and, in it, he describes a vaquero's riding style as:
"He rode with a high and light hand."
—Tom Lea, "The Hands of Cantu"
So, I asked Juni Fisher, what this means: riding with a high and light hand? Here is her reply:
"A true bridle horse is ridden with the hand above the saddle horn, and with the fingers closed around the reins, but with the elbow loose...close to the rider's ribs, but loose so that the hand is raised to signal the horse that something is about to happen. And of course, very light....Lee Anderson is a fine purveyor or this, and instead of rein connectors (made of rawhide or other leather to connect the rein chains to the bit, he uses a piece of string, reminiscent of the bridle horse guys who used the string from a tobacco pouch. Does that help? The elbow to hand line is parallel to the ground on a bridle horse."
—Juni Fisher
Well, hot damn, she should know:
Juni Fisher's latest CD
"Your horse’s behavior always seems to depend on the number of people watching you."
—Old Vaquero Saying
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