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By Penny Fletcher
penny@observernews.net
RUSKIN - As the sun sets, cars and pickup trucks begin to pull into Jack Castillo’s circle drive. It’s Monday night, and the kids bailing out of the vehicles are rarin’ to go. So are the horses in the stables behind Jack’s rural Ruskin home.
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| Penny Fletcher Photo
Jack Castillo, 4th rider from right, teaches local youth from 5-18 years old to rope and ride in rodeos.
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Three steers paw the ground in a small corral. I notice that their horns are covered with cloth.
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| Photos courtesy of Shannon Baxley
Twins Cameron, roping at the head, and Brady, roping at the tail, bring down a steer at last month’s Youth Rodeo in Arcadia. |
The ropes are ready. The time is right.
And then, suddenly, there they go! Children as young as five through their teens saddle up, ride around in a fenced corral, and eventually, when they’re ready, practice rodeo-roping steers.
Several youngsters have won rodeo awards.
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| Jack Castillo and his grandson Sevn both enjoy spending time on horseback. |
In old Florida “cowboy-style” fashion, Jack explains what’s going on as most of my knowledge of outdoor sports is limited to events that take place in (or on) water.
“I have this place, and these horses. And I have the time now. I figured I might as well put it all to some good use,” he said before introducing me to some of his long-time friends. “I’ve been riding since I was 10 or 12. Jack Richardson taught me so I figured I’d try and do the same for these kids.”
Jack’s dad died while Jack was still a young boy, and Mr. Richardson, a cowboy who also built and sold farm equipment, “kind of helped raise me,” he said. “I’ve always loved horses. I enjoy this as much as the kids.”
Mr. Richardson bought Jack his first horse, and although Jack has operated a vehicle paint and body repair business in Ruskin most of his life, he has always kept horses, cows and even sheep.
His love of the outdoors may come from his grandparents, who were loggers. They owned 10 acres. Jack still owns and maintains three. Besides working with the children, taking them to rodeos every month, running his business and working his land, he, with the help of friends, has hand-made an attractive wooden saddle room; tack house; screened pavilion for kids’ parties and neighborhood events; and with the help of Chuck Bloodgood, has completely redone the interior -- right down to hand-carved wooden cabinets with designer glass doors -- of the travel trailer they use at rodeos.
Near the corral, stands an old white outhouse.
“My wife, Doris, said I couldn’t expect the kids -- especially the girls -- to use that thing,” he said, pointing. “She insisted I make them something more suitable.”
So he built a small building near the corral that cannot be called an outhouse. I thought it was a child’s playhouse from the outside. And inside, the rustic log building has everything from a modern sink, toilet and mirrors to pictures on the walls.
In other words, though in a rustic setting, he’s made the place comfortable for the guests who call it home.
His family frequents the place too and Jack often rides with his grandson Sevn, who he has taught how to rope.
Others he trains also call him “Pappy.”
“Our boys have been training about two years,” said Shannon Baxley, who along with her husband, Steve, watched her twin sons expertly perform their practice runs. “A friend invited them to go watch one night, and right away, they decided they wanted to do it.”
The 14-year-old twins, Brady and Cameron Baxley, and 16-year-old Erika Bloodgood, have already won many rodeo awards.
Just recently in the Youth Rodeo in Arcadia they won a $1,500 saddle and breast collar. Brady won the award of All Around Cowboy last month. He also wins awards team-roping with Erika, roping the feet while she encircles the head of the steers.
Others who ride and rope at the Castillo’s corral are Dalton Willis, who has won a goat-tying challenge; Jack’s grandchildren, Jackson, 5 and Maddie, 7, and Garrett Parrish, 17, who has trained with Jack since he was 14.
Garrett’s sister, Danae, 17, and 6-year-old Willow Morgan, were also on horseback when I was there. Willow, however, said she wanted to ride the sheep.
“Rayna Bishop is getting ready to break her first wild horse,” Jack told me. “I paid to have our last one broke.” That costs about $3,000.
All the horses’ coats were slick and shiny; their manes long and untangled. The kids who ride also help care for them, Jack explained, as I watched a boy throw a pitchfork of hay into a stall.
“Over the years these boys and girls have become very special to me,” Jack said while showing me the saddles and other riding gear in the tack house. “I think it means a lot to them too (to come out and ride).”
One sentimental gift from a boy says it all.
“This is a picture of my horse Trigger,” Jack said, showing off a large-framed photograph of a stately white steed. “Justin Bloodgood took a picture of Trigger and blew it up and gave this to me for a Christmas present three years ago.”
His misty eyes must have been because of the gift and its giver- because at first, I thought Trigger must be dead the way its owner looked so lovingly at the photograph. But no, I soon found out that Trigger is 12 and healthy and (I thought) resembled the Trigger in the old Roy Rogers movies. Only until that moment, I didn’t know horses could live to be more than 30 years old.
Before leaving that night, I sat awhile in an old wooden chair across from a garden swing that’s part of a seating group arranged around a fire pit on a small cement patio just outside the screened in pavilion. It’s a good place to absorb the ambiance of the place.
My childhood was spent on the cool sands under the boardwalks of the Jersey Shore, yet somehow, I felt what it’s like to be a child on horseback, gaining on a galloping steer, mentored by a real cowboy. It was just that kind of a night.
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