Nothing quite beats a strong pole when moving through potentially aggressive animals. I keep a 5ft long THICK rebar pole whenever i have to walk inside the rams’ pasture during breeding season. (And i don’t stray very far from my gator~!) And i don’t let my dogs off when inside their 10 acres. If they turn and face me, I face them back. And as i go, i kinda bump the end of it down onto the ground, (not whack, just sort of thump straight-up and down as i walk) If i aggress it could end badly, i just let them know i have a weapon and do whatever business i need to do.
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Ah ha. So they do use the garrocha like I thought it would be used. @Horse_Rider, re the origins of the comparison to the lasso, I think people probably just forget that cattle husbandry practices are very different in Spain than they are in the US at least. When you consider that gelding animals isn’t a big thing in Spain, nor do ranchers have virtually unlimited space as exists in the US, the garrocha makes sense. They are dealing with herds comprised mainly of bulls kept close proximity to humans. In all of the videos I watched, the goal of the handlers was to make the cattle move off as a herd from humans. Not to prevent individual animals from running away from people.
The breeds they raise there are also considered midsized. So highly maneuverable. Which makes them more dangerous. You want something substantial in hand to enforce your personal bubble with those guys. Virtually everyone I know that has had a serious brush with a bull was attacked by a dairy breed. Jersey, especially, can be super dangerous because they’re so small & fast compared to beef breeds. They’ll get you before you can even see it coming. Angus at least take a few beats to get rolling giving you a running start.
@eightpondfarm, yes! I always carry a sorting stick whenever I work around cattle. The one time I had to put it down (needed both hands to push a round bale) the little longhorn bull we had charged & crashed into the bale. Fortunately, he was just an affiable goof who was extremely excited about the arrival of a fresh round bale during the depths of a polar vortex. If he’d been serious about the project I likely wouldn’t be here to type this 
.
Random cool moment: at around minute 13 you can see one guy collect up his horse into a passage/almost a piaffe.
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My cattle breed is the highlands. They love they roundbale tosses with those big horns! Instead of unrolling for them on the flat, i sometimes place uptop a hillock …making sure i get the unroll facing downhill and just let them think they are all-powerful. The bulls in the bull pasture will just rip at one and shove it around. They really make a mess! I have never felt the need for protection from any of my highlands. The rams however…YIKES!!! (and they are horned too so they can be dangerous)
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My neighbors had some Highland cattle. They tried to keep them in 2 by 4 no climb horse fencing. They tore the fence to shreds with their horns.
Haha! I love it! And highland are so adorably goofy-looking 
We had one longhorn cow in particular who could expertly unroll a round bale in under 30 seconds. Was actually useful! Another had a calf born with it’s neck bent & not breathing. She immediately perceived the problem, hooked it with her horn & tossed it a few feet. It landed with it’s neck straight & all was well. They’re good mamas. So much so that I tried not to go out there the first day or two unless absolutely necessary.
Love those Spanish bull fighting breeds. They’re gorgeous. Wish we had them here.
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Whoa!!! That must have be astonishing to witness. I think i will forever remember this story of yours. It’s kinda like swinging lambs.
And NO THANKS on those big black mean bulls… Can you imaging big, fast and mean>>?
I don’t believe they’re organically meaner or more aggressive than other cattle, though. They’re basically tortured into attacking during a bull fight. Same with rodeo bucking bulls, though not to the same degree of severity. Most bucking bulls are Brahman. The gentlest bulls – actually gentlest cattle, male or female – I’ve ever meet are these two enormous blue Brahman bull brothers. I almost had a heart attack when they first came up to us in the field since we were out there on an ATV with nothing to put between us and them. And they’re huge! Like 7’ tall at their head. They’re halter-broke & love pats & scratches.
This is a video of a rescued bull fighting bull. The website’s commentary is a tad idealistic about cattle, but it’s pretty amazing to watch!
https://youtu.be/G36cYswnn-I?list=PLtc3iQTP5EZ9lHRSRR70bDtQjovDTBjCf
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I don’t believe they’re organically meaner or more aggressive than other cattle, though. They’re basically tortured into attacking during a bull fight.
That’s not accurate. The entire point of selective breeding in animals is to get desirable traits and the desirable trait in bullfighting bulls is that they will react aggressively to being harried. An angus bull of the same size and age would be far less aggressive and far more likely to retreat rather than return again and again to get stabbed. That’s not to say that a bullfighting bull is “mean” or dumb or that in circumstances where they are handled differently and not being harried that you couldn’t hang out with them, but I would never treat the sweetest, kindest bullfighting bull the way I would a Highland bull. A bullfighting bull is going to have a much lower threshold for “f*** off,” and the action he takes to indicate “f*** off” is going to be a lot louder and faster. You do the bull a disservice by putting yourself in a situation where it can hurt you but we do love to anthropomorphize animals…
Part of the reason we use Brahman bulls for bucking stock is that in addition to being large, they come from centuries of animals who were selected for ease of handling. Unlike a bullfighting bull, they get a lot of close contact with humans, from tacking and untacking, to standing in busy corral spaces, to loading into a trailer once a week to hit the next rodeo. The only time you want them “mean” is when they’re bucking, and you use a device and spurs to make them buck. Of course, we select for the best buckers as well at this point, but we’re not interested in breeding out the ability to get them from point A to point B without human casualties.
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Yes, I agree. Like my octogenarian neighbor once said, “Honey, never trust an intact male of any species.”
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This is the reverse of how a true “bridle” horse is started. Snaffle first, with direct/leading rein action. Then the bosal, which is ridden two handed but uses indirect/“neck” reining, not direct reining. Then later the “two rein” (bosal + curb) as a transition to the finished bridle (spade) horse.
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This is also my understanding.
Thanks to my previous youtube-ing, this got recommended to me today. I clicked because there’s clearly a rope in use here, but I don’t know if this is an extension of the garrocha pole or a totally different tool? Pretty sure the tiny calf was winning in this video! 
