Rancheros Vistadores

Photo from 1951

I trimmed a couple of horses that are being ridden by Rancheros Vistadores... something I had never really heard of until this week! For one I trim all 10 of his horses, but only just met him a couple of days ago. (always worked with his wife up until then) The other lives far up north and I just met him Thursday, and trimmed his horse before he loaded him up for the drive to Santa Ynez. Rancheros Vistadores means visiting ranchers, it is the name for an invitation only elite group for men only. Ronald Reagan was a Rancheros!
They get together once a year for a week or two for "camping" and some good old bad rich rancher behavior. They ride, shoot, rope, race, drink and ... well, who knows... Turns out there are lots of hints and innuendos as to the real goings on out there. But let's see... "camping" includes hard floored "tents" which are resurected by the hands, and dinner might be lobster helicoptered in! Word has it that the local town has an influx of "ladies of the night" right before the rancheros vistadoree themselves to the area!

It's been a topic of conversation and speculation with Mario and I for the last few days - pretty fun and funny at times. I thought about not talking about it here, but it's too juicy not to. Here's something I found on line written about it.

Do The Rancheros Visitadores Rule America?
The Learjet smoothly cruised to a stop on the taxiway at tiny Santa Ynez airport, after a short, searing touchdown on the streaked asphalt strip pilots know as Runway Two Six.
The door stair swung open with a pneumatic hiss. A lanky man in denim, boots and cowboy hat sauntered down the steps, and casually tossed his duffel and a rifle case on the ground.
A Ranchero had arrived.
Not all of the Rancheros Visitadores arriving this week have their own jet, but they all share membership in a group with an undeniably rich cachet. Ever since the all male riding group was born in 1930, brainchild of cowboy artist Edward Borein, it has been the domain of wealthy, powerful, connected men from all walks of life. The name means "visiting ranchers."
It's among the ultimate in exclusive networking opportunities, some say second only to the storied Bohemian Grove retreat held annually in the redwoods 65 miles north of San Francisco. Herbert Hoover called the Grove gathering "the greatest men's party on earth."
Prophetic professor G. William Dornhoff of UC Santa Cruz asked if Bohemians and Rancheros ruled America in his 1967 tome Who Rules America? His conclusion: They'd like to.
Sure enough, in 1981, Visitadore-Bohemian Ronald Reagan ascended to the Presidency of the US. For eight years, a Ranchero was in the number one saddle in the world.
Bohemian and Yale grad John J. Mitchell, a director emeritus of United Airlines and husband of Lolita Armour of the famed Chicago meat packing family, ran with Borein's inspiration, structuring a Bohemian Grove on horseback for 1930. Numerous carriages now in the SY Museum came from Mitchell, who used them on the annual rides.
The Mitchells owned the 12,000 acre Juan y Lolita ranch on Refugio Road on the Santa Ynez River, including a sprawling, 10,000 square foot hacienda later acquired in turn by Jimmy Stewart and Dean Martin.
The RVs start the annual week long outing at the Jackson Camp on Alisal Ranch, riding to the Mission Santa Inés Saturday for a blessing by a priest. Then, to the call "Ride, Rancheros, ride!," they hit the dusty trail towards Lake Cachuma, on horses aglitter with silver tack, over 700 strong.
Clark Gable, Walt Disney, Art Linkletter, Thomas Storke, Eisenhower's Assistant Secretary of Defense, Charles Finucane; Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo astronaut Wally Schirra, Reagan's Secretary of the Interior, William P. Clark; Marine Corps Commandant and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Paul Kelley; and many, many more have enjoyed the ride, as members or guests.
Entry to the exclusive club, which emphasizes a common love of horsemanship and the outdoors, is by invitation only. There are different categories of belonging, and full membership may take years. Within the club are sub-camps with their own names, including Los Borrachos, Los Chingadores, Los Flojos, Los Bandidos, Los Tontos, Los Amigos, Los Piscadores, and Los Vigilantes. There are said to be over seventeen in all.
Safe in the closed camps along the riding route, some members delight in acting as outrageously as possible, but nobody's talking on the record. "Whiskeydore" stories are hard to verify. After all, who'd want some of the richest, most powerful men in America mad at you?
"You wouldn't believe what goes on in there," a wide-eyed videographer once hired to document the revels claimed. In 1997, a miffed wife talked of a breakfast served by topless waitresses. Photos of a rider who liked to wear a Nazi uniform slipped out in 1969.
In town, teenage waitresses have been reduced to tears by the vacationing cowboys. Others report generous tips. Hotel manager Hazel Sechler said of the Visitadores' 1958 visit, "I never was much afraid of anything after that."
A broken rider too inebriated to speak for himself was reportedly once sent to the local hospital with a diagnosis and prescription penned on his bare chest by a physician member.
On May 7, 1988, a Visitadore from San Francisco died at the Mollekroen bar in Solvang after being decked by a local welder in a midnight melee. The autopsy blamed an aneurysm.
Their meals are catered, and the entertainment is first class. "Minstrel of the Range" Don Edwards, "the best purveyor of cowboy music in America today," according to Bobby Weaver of the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, was one performer at 2004's party.
In 1955, co-founder J.J. Mitchell, ending 25 years as El Presidente, wrote "All the pledges and secret oaths in the universe cannot tie men, our kind of men, together like the mutual appreciation of a beautiful horse, the moon behind a cloud, a song around the campfire or a ride down the Santa Ynez Valley. These are experiences common on our ride, but unknown to most of our daily lives."
"Our organization, to all appearances, is the most informal imaginable. Yet there are men here who see one another once a year, yet feel a bond closer than between those they have known all their lives."