Salt Grass trail riders head to Houston rodeo

HOUSTON – KPRC reporter Chip Brewster has been embedded with trail rides for the last three days. Today, he moved over to join the oldest of the rides, Salt Grass.

“This is Cinco. Cinco and I are going to be best buddies today,” said Chip as he mounted his horse for the day.

As the original Rodeo ride they are often the largest of their peers. At 9 a.m., the anthem played, a prayer was said and the party pulled put of Katy Park.

For Chip, this was a unique ride from those he experienced over the previous two days. 

The size of the Salt Grass Trail Riders Association, the weather and the route leg are all different. With only two days left in the ride, the group was heading in to the greater Houston area and had plenty of people to wave to which is sort of by design.

“It started off as a stunt for promotion, publicity stunt for the rodeo,” said Mitch Morgan.

As trail boss Mitch told Chip, 66 years ago, a group of men got together to reenact the trail ride of pioneer cattlemen. While it may have just been a stunt at the time, it's clearly become something much more.

“Promoting a heritage, a western heritage, Texas heritage," said Mitch. “My kids, my grandkids are out here. Our wagon is fifth generation, so I hope to keep it around a few more years.”

But it's not just his wagon he's thinking about. He hopes to encourage even more of the next generation to join in and you saw it both along the way and at the lunch stop at Cullen Park.

That's also where Chip made this comment. “It’s lunchtime and I’m going to be honest with you, I’m afraid to get off this horse cause I don’t think I’m going to be walking very pretty,” he said. To which he added after dismounting, “You know, there’s a lot of muscles you don’t realize you have in there until you’re working them real hard, oh my goodness.”