Tom Garrity of Albuquerque, leads his donkey, Comet, on the six-mile burro race through the scenic and historic landscape of Cerrillos Hills State Park on Saturday.
Tom Garrity leads his donkey, Comet, along the trails of the scenic and historic landscape of Cerrillos Hills State Park in the annual burro race in Cerrillos on Saturday.
CERRILLOS — You can give a donkey a kiss, but you can’t make him race.
Joe Gelfuso tried other means, too. But Cochise, a 7-year-old donkey with a salt-and-pepper coat, appeared resistant to his attempt to establish rapport — much less run a six-mile race by his side.
Saturday morning wasn’t Gelfuso’s first time racing with Cochise in the Turquoise Trail Pack Burro Race. He’s raced all four times the competition has been held in the small, former mining community of Cerrillos, south of Santa Fe — which has grown more popular each year.
The local race is one of 14 across the Southwestern U.S. sanctioned by the Western Pack Burro Association — beginning as a way to honor the heritage of mining towns like Cerrillos and to recognize the contributions of the most humble equine.
The original race, held since 1949, is an over 20-mile trek between two Colorado towns through a grueling mountain pass. The local race isn’t so extreme — instead, it offers six-mile and three-mile loops around the village.
But that doesn’t mean Cochise felt like racing Saturday — even with Gelfuso leaning down to whisper words of encouragement.
“ I was letting him know why he’s here and what we’re doing,” Gelfuso explained, scratching Cochise’s back, with less than an hour until the race’s start time.
Gelfuso, 51, who owns donkeys back home in Rochester, N.Y., flies to New Mexico for the event, which he learned about after he’d discovered burro racing on his own.
For all four of his New Mexico runs, though, he has rented Cochise, specifically for the donkey’s “strong will.”
Tom Garrity of Albuquerque, leads his donkey, Comet, on the six-mile burro race through the scenic and historic landscape of Cerrillos Hills State Park on Saturday.
“It sounds silly. But, well, they like to run, and so I take ’em on walks,” he said of his New York donkeys. “They’re like dogs.”
It was a common refrain heard from burro enjoyers, who likened the pack animals’ nature closer to domestic house pets than horses.
“They want to be around you. They’re protective. And they’re super sweet and affectionate,” said Josh Messinger, 42, a volunteer with New Mexico Pack Burros and a burro racer with rescue donkey Cher.
“You pressure a horse to do what you want it to,” he said. “With a donkey, you basically ask them to do it. It’s more collaborative. The more you try to push a donkey, the more it’ll shut down on you.”
The event celebrated the strong, independent creature, but also the history of a quiet town deeply linked with the pack animal.
“Some of the mining towns up in Colorado and Arizona and New Mexico — it’s gotten kind of quiet,” said Peter Lipscomb, park manager of Cerrillos Hills State Park.
“So, how do you attract people? How do you pay homage?” Lipscomb, 63, asked himself.
He had seen other mining towns’ burro races and “tested the temperature” of the idea by starting burro hikes — a quick hit with the community.
From 2018 to 2022 he worked with New Mexico Pack Burros to lay the groundwork for the event.
The race has a “multilayered appeal,” Lipscomb said — attracting cultural interest, families looking for a weekend outing and even those who just “think burros are cute,” he said.
Jessica Carranza hugs her burro, Mugshot, after completing the annual burro races in Cerrillos on Saturday.
The result, he said, has been an event ever increasing in popularity, both in attendees and burro racers, with over 70 this year from around 20 for the inaugural race in 2022.
A secondary result, he said, is that visitors get to learn about the animals that “did the heavy lifting here during the mining time.”
“ Instead of horses or dairy cattle, people who settled out here … quickly learned that burros and goats are the heartier choices for this type of environment like we have here in New Mexico,” he said, noting the area’s hilly terrain is better suited for the “hearty little creatures.”
It also brings life to towns like Cerrillos.
The race is locally organized by the New Mexico Pack Burros and the state park’s support group, Amigos de Cerrillos Hills State Park, which hosted an “art in the park” market the same day to capitalize on Cerrillos’ big day.
“ It’s a small community. It’s very quiet. This is this is most we get as far as crowds,” said Sachiko Umi, 64, a longtime resident of Cerrillos, whose gallery was located on the race’s first bend — a little art market of her own paintings just beyond the garden wall.
It was a good vantage point to watch the spectrum of racing burros, too.
Tom Garrity leads his donkey, Comet, along the trails of the scenic and historic landscape of Cerrillos Hills State Park in the annual burro race in Cerrillos on Saturday.
They came in all colors and sizes — mini, standard and mammoth-sized — ranging in size from a large dog to a small horse.
And they all competed against each other, though some were more carefree about the event than others.
After the torrent of initial burro runners — laser-focused and in lockstep with their humans as they whipped around the bend — came a cohort of more easygoing racers, like a mini burro saddled with a wreath of sunflowers that paraded gingerly to cheers from roadside fans.
There were also burros who seemed entirely uninterested in participating, despite their trainers’ efforts.
Alexis Knight, in a reversal of pack-animal roles, strenuously towed her burro, Dixie, to the finish line — offering words of rallying that had little effect.
“She oughta get extra points for that!” one onlooker yelled out at the scene.
Although it was an uncooperative last leg, Knight, 35, finished in the top 10 of the three-mile race, owing the last-minute lack of cooperation to a dog that left Dixie, 7, uninterested in continuing.
Genna Mosher, 8, stands with her burros, Bluebell, left, and Bunny, after competing in the annual burro races in Cerrillos on Saturday.
It’s a competitive result for a competitive racer.
Knight has also participated in the definitive pack burro race: a grueling mountain pass race in Colorado that she likened to the “Stanley Cup of burro racing.”
She noted there are “not a ton of people who are, like, ‘Let me suffer for that long.’ ”
At first, she didn’t know she’d become an elite burro racer, leading a seven-donkey team. She just liked the animal.
“ I decided I wanted donkeys, and my wife was like, ‘What are you gonna do with them?’ ” she said. “ I just googled it, and I was, like, ‘I’m gonna run with them.’ ”
