The Bronco Buster

A horse raised on the open range might go three or four years without feeling a rope. Then one spring it was driven into a corral, and somebody had to be the first to sit on it.

That somebody was the bronc buster, also called a bronc peeler. Bronco is Spanish for rough or wild, and the job matched the word. The horses he started went into the strings the rest of the crew rode all season. A horse started well became a cow horse. One started badly could stay dangerous for life.

In 1895 Frederic Remington, an illustrator who had spent years sketching in the West, made his first sculpture: a cowboy staying aboard a rearing bronc. He called it The Bronco Buster. It became the most popular thing he ever made, and casts of it have stood in the Oval Office under several presidents.

This picture has no arena and no crowd, only sagebrush, a far blue range and a cloud of dust kicked up behind. The bay has his head down and both hind feet in the air. The rider sits deep in fringed chaps, red bandana flying, one hand on the rein and the other arm flung out for balance. The sky behind him is calm, which makes the horse look even louder.