Ramiro Gurrola of Hawaiian Gardens is one of the best riders, or charros, in Mexican rodeo. But when the chute opened one blistering Sunday this summer, the bull he was riding inexplicably collapsed, like a boxer taking a dive.
Midway through the regional Mexican rodeo championships in Sacramento, Gurrola was in fourth place, fighting a bad streak of charro luck.
The belief in charro luck rules the world of Mexican rodeo, known as charreria. In a distinctly Mexican view of life, talent takes a back seat to destiny. A lazy bull, a slow horse or a rainstorm can defeat even the best-trained cowboy.
Charro luck had foiled Gurrola before. Three years in a row, he'd failed to advance to the charreria world championship in Mexico. Yet each loss had pushed him to practice harder.
The next event that afternoon in Sacramento was las manganas, the most difficult in Mexican rodeo. The cowboy performs rope tricks and then tries to lasso the front legs of a galloping mare. Points are scored for elegance and creativity.
Few cowboys work harder at it than Gurrola, 25. Like a jazz musician, he spends hours a day riffing on his rope, hoping for the accidents and mistakes that lead to new tricks. He watches videos of his rivals. Lying in bed at night, he imagines new ways of making the rope dance.
"If you want to be good at charreria, you have to be good at the rope," he says.
So as he donned his sombrero, shouldered his rope and walked into the arena, Gurrola was losing badly, but he wasn't afraid.
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In the last few years, Southern California has emerged as a center of traditional Mexican rodeo. Leading Mexican American businessmen are sponsoring charro teams and building rodeo arenas. Three trick-roping schools have opened. The number of officially recognized charro teams has nearly doubled, to 65.
California now ranks fourth in the world in the number of sanctioned teams, behind the Mexican states of Jalisco, Hidalgo and the state of Mexico. Most of California's riders are Mexican Americans carrying on a tradition brought here by their immigrant parents.
In 2002, the three best Mexican rodeo teams came to Los Angeles and were whipped by upstart U.S.-born charros.
One of the best of them is Gurrola, a 1996 graduate of Artesia High School. Gurrola is a shy, lanky man who becomes a general when he climbs atop a horse. Though 6 foot 3, he is known in the world of charreria as Ramirito -- Little Ramiro -- named for his father and his grandfather, patriarch of a charro clan in the Mexican state of Zacatecas.
