Last week, hundreds of trailriders from all over Texas made their way into Houston to kick off rodeo season. This decades-old tradition is an emblematic celebration of Western culture, passed down over generations.
This year, Antranik Tavitian met up with the Prairie View trailriders, a historic Black riding group, two days before getting to Houston. Lexi Parra traveled with the Mission Trailriders, a majority Latino riding group, as they rode into Houston on Friday. Mission Trail Ride had riders from all over East Texas, with some riders coming up from Monterrey, Mexico on horseback to join.
To soundtracks of the likes of Cowboy Cumbia and Kendrick Lamar, these riders galloped to the city of Houston, showing the breadth of historic Western culture that lives on to this day.
“My mother and my father met on a horse, racing on a White Oak Bayou. Actually we crossed White Oak Bayou today. They met on white oak bayou, My father wanted to race my mother and of course she wooped him.
He showed up at her house, my grandmother’s house, the next day with a bouquet of roses … and here we are.
Yes, yes, yes. That’s how they met and this is how these cowgirls came to be.”
-Melanie Codrington
“We’re heading to downtown Houston. It’s a very big city and there’s a lot of children, people there are waiting there for us to welcome us in and we look forward to that, knowing that’s coming, it’s worth it.
Just a cheers and the applauses that we get and the smiles on the kids’ faces. There’s nothing better than that. I could turn around and do it all over again.”
-Melanie Codrington
“The kids are our future, and if we don’t teach the kids how to do this, then there’s no more trail riders or any other trail ride, actually. One reason why I continue, so we can leave for the children. So we can leave our history behind, because this must continue to go on.”
-Melanie Codrington
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