Gauchos

Gaucho Jose Luis Semorile trains a young quarter horse on Estancia La Argentina.

The Argentine Pampas.

Gaucho Pablo Chavez leads our horses for a days work.

Castrating calves.

Gaucho Daniel Lopez chases a young cow off of a feed pile.

Daniel and Pablo hold down a newborn calf and stamp it's ear.

Gaucho and "domador," or horse trainer, Luis Daniel Cerrudo works with a young horse.

A cattle horse sweats after working the morning.

Luis takes a break from breaking horses to drink some maté.

Daniel herds cattle on horseback.

Pablo performs an artificial insemination for farmer Martin Vivanco of some of his cows in Duggan.

Pablo, gaucho, San Antonio de Areco.

Lunch time on Estancia La Argentina.

Bread and lemon.

Luis holds onto a young horse.

Daniel and Pablo after a long day on the farm.

Gauchos watch horse competitions at the Rural Exposition in Buenos Aires.

Gaucho Pablo Chavez dresses in traditional clothing before a competition at the Rural.

Side saddle.

Pablo and a team of riders prepare to enter the ring in a suburb behind the Rural.

Daybreak, San Antonio de Areco.

Morning on the range.

Colt.

Luis finishes a mate before breaking a horse.

Dusty afternoon.

Daniel and Pablo at the end of a day on the range.

Pablo and one of his charges.

The ideal of the Gaucho- the tough as nails Argentine cowboy out riding the plains- is one of the foundational archetypes of the Argentine character. Like the cowboys of the American west, the gauchos recall for us a simpler time, over the horizon, in the past we just left behind.

Life for the gauchos of the 21st century is more complicated. As there are fewer and fewer cattle to run, the lone horseman finds himself increasingly out of demand.

In San Antonio de Areco in the Argentine Pampas, some gauchos still manage to work the fields, preserving the culture and traditions of the paisano. Some have had to migrate overseas to make money, training polo ponies in England or racehorses in Italy. And some push the notion of the gaucho into the future, becoming experts at bovine biotechnology. They cobble together, on their terms, a life of horsemanship and cattle running. They do what they can to keep the dream alive and earn their living, or at least some part of it, under the broad open sky.