Dave Ellis As a boy raised outside Taft,California, Dave Ellis at 10 years old was already working with horses. By 13 neighbors were bringing their horses to him. He’d take the buck out of the wild ones and ride them until they could be used for doing a cattle drive. His father worked in the oil fields in nearby Bakersfield and later Dave would follow along in his footsteps, working in the oilfields just like his dad. In the 1950’s he was witness to the birthing of The Bakersfield Sound. As a young working hand he saw people like Rose Maddox, Buck Owens and Merle Haggard perform at places like The Lucky Spot, Trout’s and the Blackboard. Rough and tumble, rowdy joints. “So rough they had steel doors”, he told me. His horsemanship is unsurpassed. A 5 Star Parelli Master Horse Specialist. A natural (benevolent) kind of horsemanship that evolved out of the Mexican Vaquero tradition almost 200 years ago. The soulful relationship between horse and rider and rider and horse is a beautiful thing to witness even