Straight outta Compton — in cowboy boots
California city known for gangsta rap and the Williams sisters tennis stars has long, vibrant equestrian history
COMPTON,CAL IF. Long before N.W.A put the place on the map as the birthplace of gangsta rap and its streets echoed with the sounds of drive-by gunfire, Compton was a cowboy town.
And it still is.
Go down any major thoroughfare on most any weekend, and you’re likely to find someone like Ivory McCloud decked out in his cowboy boots and hat, proudly riding his horse.
“I’ve got 40 years in this, man,” the 56-year-old horseman says exuberantly. “My dad was a cowboy. I’m a cowboy. I grew up in Compton. I live in Compton, and I’ve been training horses since I was a kid.”
He trains Tennessee Walkers, high-gait show horses, in the backyard of his home. But it’s Diamond, his prized blue-eyed Palomino, that he proudly rides in parades and rodeos whenever he can. And along the streets of his hometown.
But if he tries to explain to someone at an out-of-town rodeo that he comes from Compton, the reaction is almost always the same: “They have horses? IN COMPTON?”
Real estate agent Mayisha Akbar arrived at a time when warring street gangs were threatening to tear the city apart and drive-by shootings were common.
“We had this drug war that kind of destroyed two generations of families,” she said. “We had kids raising kids, and it was really a sad time.”
She put her three children on horses to keep them out of trouble, and soon she found other kids wanted to ride with them. So Akbar formed the Compton Jr. Posse and began teaching riding.
McCloud and other old-timers pitched in. Many had parents or grandparents who had moved from rural areas to a place where they could keep their horses as they found work a few miles away in post- Second World War Los Angeles.
Eventually the Compton Jr. Posse built its own stable and riding ring in three adjoining backyards. Hundreds of rescued horses and kids later, the non-profit group began turning out a new generation of riders like 23-year-old Tre Hosley, who competes on the Professional Rodeo Cowboy Association circuit.
“They were like, ‘ Who the hell is this kid?”’ he recalled with a laugh. “But after kind of proving myself, and making some good rides, I felt there was a little bit of a buzz, especially after I started winning.”
Compton was a nearly all-white city in the 1940s when it counted among its residents future presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush. It was essentially all black in the 1980s when sisters Venus and Serena Williams were growing up to become their generation’s greatest tennis players. Its population of 98,000 is now 65 per cent Hispanic, 33 per cent black.