Empire Ranch

Last Saturday we performed at the annual open house held at Empire Ranch near Sonoita, Arizona. It is an old and historic ranch that is the process of being restored. The open house is held each year to help raise funds for the restoration. The open house is attended by several thousand people and features an interesting collection of western performances and displays.

Of course, B Troop is a major attraction at the event. We are provided a large performance area and three time slots in which to demonstrate cavalry riding. This year we had only a few available riders so we decided to demonstrate individual tactics. I set up a course that allowed for the use of both saber and pistol and included a series of jumps. It was a good opportunity to practice the type of riding employed at the National Cavalry Competition. Unfortunately, although thousands of photos were taken at the event, I have not been able to gain access to any to illustrate this post.

With only four riders available to perform, we brought only four horses to ride. One of them, of course, was the Wonder Horse. Our first performance was the saber demonstration in which we engaged a number of targets while negotiating a series of jumps. I spent about 10 minutes warming up the Wonder Horse in the hopes that he would perform without misbehaving. We managed to get through the whole course twice before he became so agitated that I feared to take him through again. I was, also, at this point, getting fatigued. I then put Apache away and took Regent through the course. Regent is also an excitable horse but not nearly as erratic as Apache. Regent, without any warm up, performed nearly perfectly.

For our next performance we demonstrated field jumping. I did not participate in this event as we had to take turns manning the course and narrating the performance. The other riders did well and had a good time with their chosen mounts in negotiating the jumps.

Our last performance was mounted pistol. I chose Monte for this event and he performed very well even though I hadn't ridden him in a very long time. It was very fun taking Monte through the course as he is not at all a challenge to ride. Ten minutes on the Wonder Horse and you are ready to take the rest of the week off but 20 minutes on Monte and you barely break a sweat.

The crowd seemed to enjoy the performances and the few of us who were able to support the event had a good time despite the length of the day (13 hours) and the physical challenge of making it all happen. It is a shame we don't have more opportunities to do this kind of riding more often as it is much more enjoyable than parades and ceremonies.