Imagine riding a horse through an arena. The sun hits your back as you guide the thousand-pound animal in a synchronized pattern with seven other riders: Trot in a perfect circle. Stop. Spin in place. Then weave through a line of sprinting horses at just the right speed, careful not to ram into one.

Now imagine doing all of this sidesaddle. In a 15-pound dress.

Such is reality for the athletes who compete in escaramuza charra, the only women’s equestrian event in charrería, the national sport of Mexico akin to rodeo. During the event, eight women perform a routine of highly skilled maneuvers on horseback with military-like precision. They wear matching sombreros and layered dresses that have wide-ruffled skirts embroidered with flowers. The result is beautiful to behold—but don’t let the aesthetics of the tradition obscure the grit and fearlessness it requires.

That message is at the heart of a new exhibition at the National Cowgirl Museum in Fort Worth, Soldaderas to Amazonas: Escaramuzas Charras. Through photography, poetry and textiles, the exhibition highlights the skilled female horseback riders, or charras, who participate in the male-dominated world of charrería.

This is the first time the Cowgirl Museum has hosted an exhibition exclusively focused on charrería, says Associate Executive Director Diana Vela, who curated the display. “We are about cowgirls,” she says. “These charras are cowgirls.”

On view through May 11, 2025, the exhibition first takes visitors through the origin of the equestrians’ traditional outfits, which are inspired by the fearless women who fought in the Mexican Revolution, often referred to as adelitasor soldaderas. The word “escaramuza” means “skirmish”—a callback to when women horseback riders would run in circles to send dust into the air to confuse approaching enemies.

The charras’ competition dresses pull many elements from adelita dresses, like skirts that fall mid-boot and have detailed floral or geometric embroidery. At competitions, the uniforms are checked to ensure they meet strict regulations. Saddles also must meet certain standards. All charras use sidesaddles, or albardas, which keep both legs to one side of the horse. “These are very skilled equestrians,” Vela says. “This is about much more than the dress.”

Escaramuza charra was invented in Mexico in the 1950s but didn’t become a recognized competitive event until 1992. Over the last few decades, the sport has gained popularity in the U.S., where there are now more than 100 teams. Each year, the teams battle it out to win a coveted spot at the national competition in Mexico.

Unlike in Mexico, there isn’t a lot of sponsorship money that goes into the sport in the U.S. Many teams hold raffles to raise money for the expensive sport’s demands, like clothing, horse care, and travel. When teams travel to other states or Mexico to compete, they often borrow or rent horses. This only makes competitions more challenging since the horses don’t know the routines and don’t have pre-established relationships with the riders.

A second gallery at the Cowgirl Museum spotlights the women on these U.S. teams. Fort Worth-based photographer Constance Jaeggi spent the last year traveling around states like Texas, Colorado, Washington, Illinois, and California to photograph escaramuza charra teams. The result is a series of portraits called Escaramuza, The Poetics of Home.

Jaeggi said she wanted to avoid objectifying the athletes. “All the women are confronting the camera,” Jaeggi says. “I wanted it to feel empowering rather than how women have historically been photographed, kind of averting the gaze, looking away.” Some of the photos show women riding along the horizon. “Historically, you could argue, the landscape has been the domain of the white, privileged male, but in these portraits, you have Mexican American women—first-, second-, third-, fourth-generation Americans—who are owning this landscape.”

Jaeggi also wanted to incorporate the women’s voices into the exhibit. While photographing the charras, Jaeggi recorded interviews with the athletes, which she then shared with Los Angeles-based poet Angelina Sáenz and ire’ne lara silva, last year’s Texas State Poet Laureate. Poems they created are scrawled along the walls of the photo gallery, offering glimpses into the lives of charras.

I have fallen off of my horse
suffered concussions
broken bones, been dragged
and trampled on, one wall reads.

… our children were being
raised together mothered by aunts and horses, says another.

silva, who grew up around charrería culture in South Texas, said incorporating poetry adds depth to the exhibition. “Dry information you really can only read once. It’s only new once. Poetry, you can read again and again and get a different story, a different impression, a different emotion, every single time,” she says. “The same thing happens with the photos.”

The photos show women of various ages. Girls start learning about the sport before they’re old enough to compete on horseback, practicing routines with stick horses. In one photo, a group of young girls dressed in white layered dresses with colorful flowers stare intently at the camera. They look tough, focused, prepared to carry on the legacy of the fierce adelita, just as their mothers did before them.

“This is about heritage and family and community,” Vela says. “Having a space here in the United States to connect with their extended family back in Mexico. This is much bigger than a horseback event.”