Franklin County’s Mexican Rodeo Showcases Bull Riding, Tacos, and More

¡Viva el rodeo! Preserving a Mexican tradition in Columbus

Bulls, riders, musical acts, and other entertainment descend on Rancho Centenario from all corners of the U.S. Mexican diaspora every few months. It’s a warm evening and hundreds of people are gathered at a ranch on the outskirts of Franklin County for the region’s largest cowboy show that many residents have never heard of.

A bull rider who goes by the stage name “Chocolate” hovers above a chute, moments away from dropping onto a thrashing Brahman crossbreed whose warlike demeanor befits his name: “El General.” On a stage above the bull pen, a 12-piece brass band from Chicago blasts out Ranchera tunes about love and heartbreak, their red sequin suits glinting in the setting sun.

Meanwhile, families with children, young people on dates, and other rodeo fans watch from bleachers and tables around the ring’s perimeter, munching on tacos, ceviche, and churros. A group of vaqueros — cowboys — peer above the rest, coolly sipping Modelo beers in their saddles while their mounts, trained to dance, tap their hooves to the band’s beat.

A man surveys the scene on this mid-May evening, smiling. He’s wearing a cream cowboy hat, pressed shirt, and blue jeans. A medallion on a gold chain around his neck is emblazoned with the name of this ranch, Rancho Centenario, just outside the unincorporated village of Galloway, southwest of Columbus.

This is Artemio Arriaga, and this is his rodeo — or jaripeo, as it’s called in Michoacán, the western Mexican state where he was born. Arriaga, 54, has lived in Franklin County for nearly three decades and works at a plastic recycling company in Columbus as his day job. He began hosting rodeos over a decade ago. At first, they were small affairs, just for family and friends. But they have since grown into major public events, regularly drawing more than 1,000 people. Every few months, bulls, riders, musical acts, and other entertainment descend from all corners of the U.S.-Mexican diaspora onto Arriaga’s ranch, which is surrounded by pastures and cornfields. Tickets are usually $60 for adults; children under 10 get in free.

Sometimes Arriaga makes a profit and sometimes he loses money, but the rodeo is always a labor of love, he says. “My intention to do this event is (for) the kids … (so) they know about the traditions in Mexico,” he says. “Keep the tradition.”

Arriaga has an abiding love of Mexican cowboy culture — which shares much in common with its American cousin and is rooted in his childhood in rural Michoacán in west-central Mexico. In those days, his father, who made charcoal for a living by burning logs in a man-made earthen kiln, used a horse as his main form of transportation. “You needed to have a horse for work, for travel. There were no cars, no nothing,” Arriaga says.

When his hometown hosted rodeos, bull riders (called jinetes) would arrive from across the region. Each rider tried to ride the bull for as long as he could — not just six seconds like in American rodeos now, Arriaga said. Sometimes there were prizes, but often they competed simply for the glory of representing their towns or villages. At age 14, Arriaga moved to Southern California and began working and sending money home to his family in Michoacán.

He met his wife, Vicky, who is of Mexican American descent and grew up in Southern California, about a decade later, and they moved to Grandview Heights, Ohio, a Columbus suburb, in the 1990s. Arriaga got a job with a recycling company, and the couple became parents to three children who grew up locally. Vicky was unfamiliar with ranching culture and initially skeptical when Arriaga began talking about buying a ranch and breeding horses. “I kept saying, ‘You know, horses are so expensive, why would you want that?” she recalls.

But eventually her husband’s persistence won her over, and 15 years ago, they bought over a dozen acres in Prairie Township. Arriaga and his friends constructed a barn. He bought horses — Andalusians and Fresians — which live in well-kept stables. He breeds the animals and trains them to dance to Mexican tunes, a tradition known as caballos bailadores.

Arriaga’s elder daughter, Briana, a paralegal who recently graduated from Ohio State University, says she grew up helping her father in the barn every day after school — sweeping up, shoveling manure, grooming the horses, and braiding their hair. “My dad’s the type of person who, once he sets his mind to it … no one is going to change his mind,” she says. “Now, grown up, I really value it. If it wasn’t for my dad, I really wouldn’t have known what it is to do hard work.”

In the early years, Arriaga hosted small rodeos for friends and small groups of about 100 people total. Eventually, he built a ring and stage. Word got out, and Arriaga opened the events to the public. Now, it’s common to have 1,000 or more people show up from across Ohio and neighboring states — including many diehard fans.

What started as Arriaga’s personal dream has become a shared cultural touchstone for Columbus‘ growing Mexican — and more broadly, Latino — community. Over 56,000 of Franklin County’s residents speak Spanish at home today, more than double the amount in 2000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. For some, the rodeo offers a chance to reconnect with one’s roots and share traditions with the next generation.

Like Arriaga, Alejandra Herrera, owner of El Ranchito Mexican restaurant in Columbus’ South Hilltop neighborhood, grew up in Michoacán. She says she loves the fact that Arriaga has brought their traditions to Columbus. She never misses his rodeos if she can help it — so much so that she and her husband rescheduled their 25th wedding anniversary party because the date conflicted with one of the rodeos. “We had already planned everything for that day. Then Artemio announces he’s having a jaripeo that day, and I told my husband, ‚We have to move everything!’” she says.

Gabriello Bucio, a ranch worker in Springfield, Ohio, who has been riding horses since he was 5, says he goes to Arriaga’s events several times a year. „It’s something beautiful. … It’s a family event, and a lot of fun,“ he says. The rodeos usually feature two teams of riders, each representing a different part of Mexico. In promotional posters and social media posts, Arriaga calls the events “guerras de estados” — “wars of the states” — drawing on historic, but friendly, rivalries. May’s matchup — the Mexican states of Hidalgo versus Oaxaca — is a bit like “Michigan versus OSU,” Vicky says, chuckling.

It’s a few hours before the rodeo begins, and some of the bull riders, having traveled overnight from across the country, are lying in the shade of Arriaga’s apple orchard, their cowboy hats tipped over their eyes like sleep masks. Jorge “Chocolate” Dominguez and Josue “Bandido” Villa are awake, chatting under a tree. Both men will represent their home state of Hidalgo this night, though they’ve never met before on the Mexican American rodeo circuit.

Dominguez, 23, works construction in Sacramento, California, and rides bulls as a side gig around 10 weekends per year, he says. “It’s a beautiful thing. … It’s something I like to do,” he says. Villa, 31, who came from Austin, Texas, is wearing a leather belt embroidered with the names of his daughters, Naomi and Kimberley, who live in Mexico. He learned to ride bulls on his grandfather’s ranch as a kid and bears scars on his forehead and abdomen from past accidents. He acknowledges the profession is “a little crazy.” “Pues, gracias a Dios, aquí seguimos,” he says. (Well, thank God, we’re still here, continuing.)

Inside his barn, Arriaga cleans up the stables and wonders aloud whether he will break even tonight. There were fewer ticket pre-sales than usual, and many expenses. Each bull rider earns at least $1,000. Arriaga has hired companies from Arkansas and Georgia to transport in the animals along with their wranglers, plus two musical acts and a rodeo clown from various states. He’s also paid Prairie Township for event permits and stand-by paramedics, plus several county sheriff’s deputies for extra security. In total, he estimates the costs are over $40,000.

As the sun lowers in the sky, the grass parking lot fills with cars, and people trickle in. Arriaga’s daughter Briana is selling micheladas — cocktails made with beer, tomato juice, and lime. His wife Vicky is under a tent selling aguas frescas (non-alcoholic drinks made from fruit, water, lime, and sweeteners) with outside vendors toting cowboy hats, belt buckles, and snacks. Children play in a bounce castle and take turns mounting a mechanical bull, while others play hide-and-seek around the bleachers.

At its height, the crowd numbers less than 500 — a smaller showing than usual, which Arriaga attributes to another community event happening on the same day. Still, he’s making the most of the night, glad-handing guests and shooting the breeze with the bull riders as they smoke cigarettes to calm their nerves behind the stage. The riders — five from each state — each have a turn on a different bull.

The first rider, from Hidalgo, lasts a few seconds, ripping his shirt in the process. The second, from Oaxaca, rides for a little longer, but falls with the bull on top of his leg. It looks bad, but he only suffers a sprained ankle, and the township paramedics give him first aid. At halftime, a team of caballeros (horsemen) enter the ring, showing off their horses’ dance moves. Then the rodeo clown — a traveling street performer from New Jersey named Daniel Haces — puts on a show featuring flaming devil sticks, a comically large pair of pink underwear, and a good-natured audience volunteer who clearly did not foresee what he was getting into.

As the night progresses, Team Oaxaca leads Team Hidalgo by a wide margin, headed for victory. The second band comes on and starts playing slower tunes; some couples start to dance in the dark. Amid all the noise, a toddler is asleep in a stroller beside his parents — perhaps dreaming of becoming a jinete, or bull rider — someday.