The Vaquero Heritage Trainers Challenge hosted by Jeremy Dunn will take place in the Fall of 2014 in the beautiful town of Tehachapi California. We are looking for 6 local trainers who are willing to change the lives of 12 horses. These 6 trainers will each pick up 1 horse from a local wild band of horses in May 2014 to be ready to show under saddle in a series of presentations at the Challenge in the Fall. Our main event in which our trainers will be judged will be the second horse that will be assigned to them by lottery at the event. This will be a younger horse, there is no expectation of riding in three days, instead our judges will follow the progress of each trainer and their horse and score the trainers on connection, on how far they've reached into the horse and drawn him into a bond. Each trainer will be scored individually based on their progress with the horse they received via lottery draw, not against each other. The Vaquero Heritage has long lived in the hills of Tehachapi as it has on the nearby historic Tejon ranch as it also lives in the heart of Jeremy Dunn. Jeremy was born with an inherited passion for anything that has to do with horses and cattle. In that passion also comes a respect and love for the history of his ancestors, the Californio Vaqueros. Jeremy's Great, great grand father Anselmo Campas began his Vaquero career at the age of twelve at the Tejon Rancheria. He was a Yaqui Indian and his family lived farther north in the San Joaquin Valley until the United States government, in the late 1800s, decided to make the Indians go to reservations. The U S hired German Hessian mercenaries to see that the Indians were sent to the reservations. Anselmo's father did not wish to go to the reservation they wanted him and his family moved to, (The Tule Reservation) he wanted to go elsewhere to another reservation, so to punish him for his disobedience they cut his fingers off. (This is a true fact handed down from Mary Campas Rodriguez, Jeremy's Great Grandmother.) He and his family fled down to the Tejon Rancheria when Anselmo was twelve. The vaqueros took great pride in their horsemanship and when it came to training horses, that same easy style to life applied. So as the judges watch each trainer working with their horse, they will be looking for some of those same qualities that would have been valued in the days when time was slower, the pace a little easier, and progress was measured in the soft turn of an eye, the easy bend of a graceful young horse and the strong bond of a horse and his partner.

Please keep watch in the upcoming weeks as we look for our contestants and share details and information with you...

Until we meet again...
Via Con Dios