The Rodeo Rider

Before anyone sold a ticket to watch it, riding a wild horse was ranch work, and every outfit had a few horses that never fully gave up the fight.

Horses that stayed ornery went into the rough string, and a ranch kept a rider who could handle them. Sooner or later those riders wanted to know who was best. Deer Trail, Colorado, says the first contest was held there on July 4, 1869, between hands from the Mill Iron, Camp Stool and Hash Knife outfits. A rider named Emilnie Gardenshire won a suit of clothes on a horse called Montana Blizzard.

This horse is not bucking. It is rearing, which carries its own danger: a horse that goes up too far can come over backward onto the man in the saddle.

The drawing is charcoal on tan paper. The black horse fills the frame, forelegs folded high, mane flying, while the rider sits deep with the reins gathered in one hand and his hat still on. Below them the dust is laid in with smudged, sideways strokes.