DEADLY RODEOS THRIVE IN TEXAS
Mexican-style events draw families with music, tacos and dangerous riding competitions,
Francisco Santos Sr. hoisted himself onto the horse and took off through the arena after a steer. The horse caught the calf in seconds, and Santos stretched out his right hand to grab the steer’s tail. But the saddle shifted, and Santos’s left leg slipped over the horse’s back and his hand came loose from the saddle’s horn.
He lost his grip and fell. The horse galloped away and Santos lay still with his face in the dirt, his white cowboy hat on the ground beside him.
The 46-year-old Dallas man died in July in a small rodeo arena in southern Dallas County while participating in an event that’s long been part of immigrant culture across Texas. As Dallas’s Hispanic population has grown, the rodeos have attracted bigger crowds. Though dangerous, the events are places where families gather for fun and where riders test their courage and skill.
Amonth after Santos died,18-year-old Leandra Santoyo went to a rodeo at the same arena. She and her boyfriend had planned to see a band playing there. Instead, Santoyo decided to take part in the rodeo, so she climbed onto a horse. The animal bucked her, and then fell on top of her. Santoyo died of her injuries on the way to the hospital.
Rodeos like these have operated for decades. At some of the events, known as coleaderos, bands play, vendors sell tacos and organizers charge admission. Men, fuelled by family tradition and, often, beer and tequila, take turns riding a horse to try to grab a steer’s tail and flip it over — usually in an atmosphere with little oversight, security or medical staff.
In the past three years, police have been called out numerous times to the site where Santos and Santoyo died. Those calls have included complaints about horses running into cars, people falling off horses and fights breaking out between participants. In one 911 recording, a caller told police that people were using saddles, whips and charging horses as weapons.
Dallas County Fire Marshal Robert De Los Santos sent notices of violation to two rodeo operators after the two deaths last summer. The letters told the rodeo companies to get business permits or shut down.
But there’s little sign that rodeo participants or organizers are changing their traditions.
On weekends in the Dallas area, there’s a strong chance that somewhere, someone is hosting a coleadero. They pop up where there’s available land and little oversight — in backyards, near horse stables and on large properties with open spaces. Events are publicized through word of mouth, social media, YouTube and on Spanish-language radio. Sometimes flyers are tacked up in feed stores.
The gatherings are loosely tied to charreria, a roping and riding tradition that’s been passed down from generation to generation and is intimately linked to Mexican culture.
But unlike charreria — a Mexican rodeo competition with nine events — anyone can get on a horse if they hand over cash at a coleadero.
Robert Silva, who sponsors a Dallas team that competes in charreadas across the state and in Mexico, said the unregulated coleaderos stray far from the tradition of charreria, a sport with rules about animal treatment and athlete participation.