Cloud Spray Over The Cave And The Source of The Classic Bucking Bronco

 November 23, 2025

   Got up yesterday morning and on my way to the studio, looked out over the back fence and spied this dramatic cloud spray over the cave. 

   See, it pays to get up early!

   Like most artists and writers I sometimes suffer from faint praise. Remember the letter from the senator (see Nov. 18 blog) addressed to the "Writer, Humorist, Artist & Old West Historian"? When I see that list, this is the voice I hear in my head:

"He who sips from many cups, drinks of none."

—Old Vaquero Saying

   And speaking of my heroes who drank heavily from one cup, Frederick Remington gulped down and refined the country's fascination with horseback riders. Bar none!

Frederick Remington: "A Running Bucker"

(1895)

   Being a lifelong Remington fan I just assumed he was always doing cowboys on bucking broncos, but when I pulled down my Remington Catalogue Riasonne and looked at all of his known artwork I found that for the first twenty years of his art career (1875-95), he doesn't do the classic cowboy on a bucking horse! He comes close, a soldier—not a cowboy—on a rearing horse ("A Sample Breed" 1891), then in 1892 ("A Pitching Bronco"), then in 1893 we get ("A Buck-jumper"), then in 1893 we get ("Turn Him Loose, Bill") and there's another one, ("Mounting A Wild One") in the same year, but it's not until 1895—twenty years into his illustration career—that he lands on ("A Running Bucker", above). It must be noted that this is a mirror match to ("The Sun Fisher") from the same year. Then, of course, Remington is off to the races and I haven't counted how many variations he does of a cowboy on a bucking horse, but I have a hunch it is massive. More details to come. I think there is a big True West feature on the evolution of the image we all assume has been there since day one, but, at the end of the day it's all relative, isn't it?

"Oh, to be ninety again."

—Old, Really Old, Vaquero Saying