Coco Camacho - Founding Member of the Escaramuza

Coco at age 14  in 1957. Here she's at a charreria before dancing Jarabe Tapatio.  Just to her left is Graciela Ruiz Loredo, fellow founding member of the first escaramuza. The girl standing second from the right is Susana Mondragon, who joined the escaramuza after the boys left the team.

Coco Camacho in 2009

Guadalupe Camacho Elorriaga, known by her friends as "Coco," was one of the six little kids who had no idea they were going to be part of something big back in 1953.

She and her two brothers, Antonio and Jose, took horse riding lessons with three other kids, from the Ruiz Loredo family, at the Rancho Charro, today's National Charro Association, in Mexico City, and performed a short choreographed version of what they had learned during a charreada, or Mexican rodeo, inadvertantly creating the first "escaramuza."

Almost 60 years later, the escaramuza is no longer co-ed, but a female discipline within charreria, officially recognized as an offical sport within traditional mexican rodeo in 1991, which hundreds of women across mexico and the U.S. proudly call their own.
 

"You could say it's like rain on a field that's been dry. When the escaramuza comes, it refreshes." 

 - Coco Camacho

   

The above video is made up of historical photographs of all six founding members, featuring an interview with Gudalupe "Coco" Camacho Elorriaga. Below, watch a documentary about the evolution of the sport and where it is today.