‘Cowboy’ brings horse wrangling skills to WEF
To pull off thirteen weeks of competition running 13 rings simultaneously requires a well-oiled operation behind the scenes at the Winter Equestrian Festival [WEF]. Central to the success is the jump crew and one member of that team has come in useful more than once when things don’t quite go to plan.
Last ‘Saturday Night Lights’ a loose horse took a tour of the International ring several times and did not look like letting up until ‘Cowboy’ – a longstanding member of the WEF jump crew – took a stance and the horse retired to the ingate.
“Sometimes when the horse gets loose like that they have the bridle on the ground so the horse never wants to stop,” said Cowboy – real name Santos Alvarez – originally from El Salvador.
“You have to yell but from far away, not when the horse is close to you. The distance is important so you have time to move if the horse does not stop. About four years ago at the National in Kentucky there was a loose horse in the indoor arena in the Grand Prix and I did the same thing – because nobody could stop the horse.”
Cowboy’s nickname was gifted to him because of his attire. “People saw me all the time with my hat and my boots,” he said. When he arrived in the States he groomed for some 14 years before joining the Jump Crew team about eight years ago.
Most days, he runs the Mogavero ring – used for the jumpers – and joins the team in the International Arena for Saturday night Grand Prix.
Each ring has a sub-team of jump crew whose job it is to ensure the courses are set up properly and order is maintained in a sport that occasionally requires instinctive reactions.
“I have a lot of friends in the rings,” said Cowboy. “When somebody falls off, I try to help the person and the horse and I know how I can stop the horses.”
Course designers confer with each jump crew prior to the start of each class and the crew are given maps to reference the layout of the jumps. Precision is important, not least on Saturday nights, when the stakes are high and the audience is a factor with several thousand spectators.
“On Saturdays the Grand Prix means more pressure because everybody’s looking and because of the height of the jumps,” said Cowboy. But he takes the job in his stride. “Nothing is difficult when you love what you do. I love my job,” he said.
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