TUCSON & SANTA FE, NM (By Claudine LoMonaco. Tucson Citizen) February 22, 2006 — Francisco Villicana's love of horses comes from his childhood in Sasabe, Son., where cowboys were kings and horses put food on the table.

"They were work tools," he said, not playthings, "and my grandfather would never let me run them. They were too important to stress out like that. We depended on them to survive."

Villicana, a 41-year-old contractor, moved to Tucson when he was 10 and bought his first horse in his early 20s. Today, he owns three and is one of the thousands of Latinos who plan to ride or attend tomorrow's Tucson Rodeo Parade.

Latinos make up to 40 percent of parade viewers, drawn by a deep connection to horses in Mexico and Latin American societies, according to parade organizers.

Rural communities in Mexico are still very much horse cultures where horses are held in reverence, said Tom Sheridan, an anthropologist at the University of Arizona.

"When you go out drinking with a group of men in small towns in Sonora, they don't talk about women," he said. "They talk about horses."

The highlight of any Sonoran festival is always a horse race, he said. They begin at the start of the day with the most locally or regionally renowned horses, and bets can run up to $100,000.

But by the end of the day, cowboys will challenge one another and sometimes race the mules, Sheridan said.

"It's a pretty wild scene."

A large percentage of Tucson Latinos were born in or have strong family ties in Sonora, he said, and many still have contact with those living cultural traditions when they visit.

The United States used to be a horse culture but made the transition to urban living a lot earlier than people in Mexico, Sheridan said.

Many people drive up from Mexico, where ranching is a huge industry, just to see the parade, said Felipe Garcia of the Metropolitan Tucson Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"Some of the best steaks and beef you can taste come from Sonora," where rodeo skills, known as "charreria," are considered an art, not a sport, Garcia said.

The parade and rodeo help make February one of the busiest months for visitors from Mexico, who annually pump more than $300 million into Tucson's economy, according to 2001 study by UA.

Federico Bravo, 52, learned to ride horses in his native Nicaragua. Now, the Alcoa Fastening Systems employee goes to work every morning at 5 so he can spend afternoons training his four horses to "dance," a challenging show of skill that involves an intricate series of trots and hops.

He plans to ride in tomorrow's parade.

"The crowds love when the horses dance," he said. "The applause fills you. It's a wonderful feeling."

Villicana loves to dance with his horses as well, but the parade is about more than that, he said. It's about a love of horses and sharing that love with people who may not be able to have horses in their lives.

"I'm always the last one there after the parade." he said. "I stick around so if children or people want to pet my horse, they can."