Georgian Trick Riders

[Subdeacon Joe]

They were first-class horsemen from humble roots who left what was then a far-flung corner of the Russian Empire more than a century ago to perform in the United States. Their influence on Western riding culture has proved enduring.

 

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For 30 years, these trick riders, mostly from Guria, in western Georgia, performed in the US, becoming a central attraction in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West shows.

“I had known about Gurian-Georgian riders from my childhood,” explains Makharadze.

 

“I am Gurian, too; my father was born in Guria, but I was born and raised in Tbilisi. When I would visit my father’s village in Guria, I sometimes heard the stories about trick riders told by old villagers.”

Makharadze’s book, Georgian Trick Riders in American Wild West Shows, 1890s-1920s, details how the riders were first recruited from Guria in 1892, when they  joined the show, Buffalo Bill’s Wild West, in England.