REINS SUPREME

Yolanda Campos’ earliest memories are of being on horseback at age 5, when she began falling deeply in love with her family’s Mexican rodeo traditions. Within two years, she was being trained for escaramuza, or “skirmish,” in which eight horsewomen perform a perfectly choreographed series of exercises celebrating their heritage and equestrian excellence. It’s the only event for women in Mexico’s national sport of charrería.

“I was 7 and everyone else was in their 20s,” says Yolanda, who’s still riding more than a half-century later — with an Arizona team that includes three generations of her family.

Born in Mexico nearly 75 years ago, escaramuza still attracts Mexican-American women to more than 100 officially recognized teams across 18 states. Two of the winningest teams, Rayenari and Amazonas de Sol Oro, are based in Phoenix, home to a decades-long charrería tradition anchored at Rancho Corona, a historic venue also known as the Corona Ranch and Rodeo Grounds.

Yolanda is now in her early 60s, but only her gray hair gives away her age as she and her horse perform synchronized movements to mariachi or ranchera music with women and girls decades younger. In 2025, their team, Amazonas de Corazón Oro, ranked third among more than 400 in the U.S. and Mexico. Rayenari ranked first that season, which ran from February through November, with the teams traveling to competitions around the U.S. and Mexico.
 

LIKE ALL CHARRERÍA, escaramuza is a family affair, and most riders are the daughters and granddaughters of equestrians. Yolanda’s daughters Cristal and Alicia also ride with Amazonas de Corazón Oro (the “gold” team), along with her niece Ivonne. Granddaughter Ana Alicia and great-niece Clarisa, both teenagers, ride on Amazonas de Corazón Plata, the “silver” sister team for younger and less experienced riders.

The riders practice together with their own horses several times a week in the shadow of Phoenix’s South Mountain, not far from Sky Harbor International Airport, at Rancho Ochoa, a Mexican rodeo arena called a lienzo — a word that translates to “canvas” or “linen,” a nod to the sport’s artistic display.

Most of the animals are American quarter horses, but Big Red, which Yolanda rides, is a stunning bay and quarter horse mix she describes as “a Cadillac — a very smooth ride.”

Like her mother, Cristal began riding very young — she was taught at age 7 by her late grandfather Uriel. “When I ride, I’m riding with my tata,” she says of the lifelong horseman, who died in 2019 at age 76. She says escaramuza is a beloved but expensive hobby, with riders doling out hundreds of dollars for outfits, saddles and tack — in addition to the costs of owning and caring for their horses. The riders feed, exercise, groom and wash their own animals, even when Phoenix summer temperatures hit triple digits.

Like Cristal, who manages a medical office, the other adult riders have day jobs. There are also family dinners to cook, clothes to wash and children to raise. “You know how some people come home from work and take a nap on the couch? Not me,” says Yolanda, who works full time for a printer. “I have too much to do.”

Today, most U.S.-based escaramuza riders are bicultural second- and third-generation Mexican-Americans. And many of their partners compete in men’s events that show off their calf roping, bull riding and other rodeo skills. Cristal says her father, a cousin and her eldest son compete with an all-male team called Los Camperos. Even her kindergarten-age daughter is in escaramuza training with a caballito de palo — a stick pony.
 

“It’s great for the younger girls,” Cristal says. “They learn how to convivir — to get along with each other. It teaches them dedication, discipline and having a team feeling that celebrates working toward a goal.” Equally important, she says, is learning to embrace family traditions. “It’s a beautiful feeling wanting to follow the path of your grandparents, and your parents, and eventually your kids,” she says. “This is my family. It’s in our blood.”

Rayenari also has several members from the same family. That team gained international attention after it was featured in a photo spread in Vogue magazine, then was invited by fashion house Christian Dior to participate in its 2019 show in Chantilly, France. The riders performed in a sudden rainstorm at an outdoor arena before some 700 people, galloping on rented white horses in white dresses with black trim, made especially for them. “It’s still like a dream for me,” says América Martínez, Rayenari’s team captain then and now. “They paid for everything and treated us like celebrities. It was unforgettable.”

Now in her 40s, Martínez is a single mother living west of Phoenix, where she cares for her two small children and horse while working remotely as an academic counselor for university students. “It’s a way to maintain a really close family, and the competitions are our family vacations,” she says of escaramuza, noting that her children were delighted to visit Aguascalientes, Mexico, for a recent meet where they saw several cousins and an aunt who was competing.

Claudia Vega, the coach for Amazonas de Corazón and Rayenari, also lives in Phoenix but regularly flies to New Mexico, Texas and Oklahoma to train other teams. “Uno! Dos! Tres!” she barks in Spanish one fall afternoon as she drills riders through 12 coordinated exercises: The riders spin on their horses and cross the arena at a high speed, then fan out as they gallop around the lienzo in a crowd-pleasing formation.

“I really do enjoy this and try my best,” says Vega, a former escaramuza rider who left a medical career to pursue her passion as a coach. “It really helps that I speak both languages. With some girls, I talk to them in Spanish and they answer me in English.”
 

MEXICO'S CHARRERÍA ORIGINS reach back to the 16th century, when the charros, or cowboys, who worked on Spanish haciendas organized competitions to demonstrate their ranching skills. But Mexico’s Asociación Nacional de Charros traces the first escaramuza team to 1953, when the group’s then-president, Everado Camacho, helped bring together six boys and girls, ages 5 to 9, who performed on horseback before an enthusiastic crowd at the group’s Mexico City rodeo grounds.

Camacho’s children, Guadalupe, Antonio and José — along with Luis, Arturo and María Eugenia Ruiz Loredo, three siblings from another family — performed to Las Coronelas , a traditional polka associated with female military leaders of the Mexican Revolution. “We didn’t know then what could happen with escaramuza, but my father was a man of vision,” José says in a phone interview from Mexico City with his brother and sister.

“There was never anything like it in charrería before or since,” Guadalupe adds. She later joined an early escaramuza group as the teams evolved.

To compete today, escaramuza riders must be federada, meaning they belong to the Federación Mexicana de Charrería A.C. That group prescribes what riders wear, such as matching dresses for everyone on the team. Saddles, harnesses and other elements of the tack should match as well. A cotton dress known as the adelita, named after the women who fought in the Mexican Revolution, is the most worn outfit. It’s long, with ruffles, a high neck and sleeves that are either long or short and puffed. White or off-white cloth calzoneras, or bloomers, are tucked into boots. Crinolinas, or ruffled petticoats, are starched.

A horseshoe design is stitched on the side of low-heeled leather boots. A sole spur is worn on the left boot, with a single left stirrup for riding sidesaddle. The right leg is bent and rests on the saddle’s side. Riders wear wide-brimmed sombreros de charro, with the most desired made of rabbit-fur felt and costing hundreds of dollars. The riders wear their hair in ponytails secured with matching cloth bows.
 

The wide-brimmed hats are also de rigueur with media gala dress, a lesser-used federation-approved outfit that the Amazonas wore in November at a private charrería tournament at Rancho Corona. Their short, gray jackets and long, straight skirts were decorated with embroidered flowers and accented by neck bows, hair bows and sashes in chartreuse.

Rancho Corona has been a local institution for generations of Mexican-American families. Over five decades, it’s hosted innumerable weddings and quinceañeras, traditional 15th birthday celebrations for girls. It’s been the site of corporate and community gatherings, specialty rodeo shows, and concerts by Mexican singers such as Juan Gabriel, Vicente Fernández and Joan Sebastian.

Felix and Soledad Corona, originally from Jalisco, Mexico, acquired the arena in 1976 and developed it into an events venue. Now in their early 90s, they’ve been married for more than 70 years and still attend events there, with the patriarch wearing his charro outfit and big sombrero. (Older Mexican-Americans in Phoenix might remember when the family operated the downtown Orpheum Theatre as a popular venue for Spanish-language films and Mexican performers.)

When the couple bought the arena a half-century ago, on land surrounded by cotton and alfalfa fields, “It was more nails than wood,” recalls Hector Corona, one of their eight children. Today, the four sons and four daughters have varied degrees of involvement in the family business.

Hector focuses on the arena, allowing him to spend more time on his quarter horse, Dr. Miyagi, named for the Pat Morita character in The Karate Kid. “A bad day on a horse is better than a good day in the office,” says Hector, who’s married to Vega, the escaramuza coach. Alex handles food and beverages, while Armando provides additional support during special events while also running his own business. “Charrería runs deep in the threads of our family,” says Juan Manuel, the eldest son and chief operating officer. “We feel a strong responsibility to preserve this legacy for our community.”

The Coronas’ daughter Esperanza Corona-Rodriguez worked at the movie house as a teenager, and she and her three sisters rode on escaramuza teams. She later co-founded, with Vega, the nonprofit Escaramuza Charra Virgen de la Soledad, which provides scholarships to young riders. Her 2-year-old grandson Jacobo, who shares her thick black curls, likes to wear a cowboy hat too large for his head, along with little cowboy boots. At the tournament in November, he walked around waving a bit of rope like a lasso. “He really wants to ride,” Esperanza says, and Jacobo’s mother, her daughter, rides with Rayenari.

“My dad truly did build a huge legacy,” Esperanza says, adding that Felix and Soledad “are the history of Mexican-Americans in Arizona.”