Venue owners surrender conditional use permit rather than face Showing Animals Respect & Kindness and the Humane Farming Association application for emergency injunction
ROCHELLE, Illinois––Steer-tailers in the habit of converging on Rancho La Esperanza will have to jerk something else, somewhere else, after the property owners on July 10, 2026 relinquished the Ogle County conditional use permit, held since 2012, that allowed them to hold public events, including coleaderos, as steer-tailing contests are called in Spanish.
Charros, Spanish for ‘cowboys,’ in coleadero chase a running steer on horseback, trying to throw a running steer down by yanking the steer’s tail around the charro‘s ankle, simultaneously kicking the steer sideway with a spurred boot.
Often the hair and flesh is stripped from the steer’s tailbone. Many steers, felled repeatedly during multiple runs through the arena, suffer leg and head injuries.
July 18, 2026 coleadero cancelled
The first coleadero that now will not be held was scheduled for July 18, 2026. Showing Respect & Kindness [SHARK] and the Humane Farming Association had on July 8, 2026 applied to Judge Crull for an emergency injunction to try to prevent it.
“The judge,” Russell A, Crull of the Illinois 15th Judicial Circuit, “asked specifically about the July 18 coleadero, and was assured by the property owners’ representative that it was cancelled,” Showing Animals Respect & Kindness founder Steve Hindi exulted in a call to ANIMALS 24-7.
“We just got out of court,” Hindi said. “The Rancho La Esperanza property owners have given up their Ogle County conditional use permit.”
“The Ogle County commissioners still have to accept the relinquishment on their meeting of July 21, 2026, but it’s a done deal,” Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7.
Who owns what?
Who exactly the Rancho La Esperanza property owners are remains somewhat mysterious, since fourteen different people have been listed as owners of the site, located at 16989 Ritchie Road, Rochelle, Illinois 61068, during the fourteen years the conditional use permit has been in effect.
Recently listed property owners Maria Sylveria Pena and Javier Aguirre, who may have bought Rancho La Esperanza in 2022, on July 13, 2024 sold the 10-acre former horse ranch to Fajo Properties LLC for $850,000.
On December 17, 2024, Jose Gaucin and Aracely Meza, residents of Cicero, Illinois, 76 miles away, obtained a supplemental special use permit allowing them to use Rancho La Esperanza as a wedding venue.
But coleaderos continued, violent as ever, despite the sustained efforts of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness to stop them.
(Beth Clifton collage)
“Issue isn’t over with,” says Hindi
“We’ve won, after five grueling years, on stopping the steer-tailing contests,” Hindi told ANIMALS 24-7, “but the issue isn’t over with. The statute of limitations on animal cruelty offenses is only two years, but that gives us two years to continue to seek prosecutions for a lot of the things we’ve documented recently.
“The statute of limitations for corruption offenses and non-response to public records requests involving public officials is four to five years,” Hindi said, “and we intend to pursue that on all fronts.
“We are never going to let go of pursuing Ogle County state’s attorney Mike Rock and sheriff Brian Van Vickle for their inaction in response to the blatant cruelty at Rancho La Esperanza, including use of unlicensed or improperly licensed veterinarians when they had any, for as long as they live,” Hindi pledged
(Beth Clifton collage)
Las cucharachas
As to the likelihood that the steer-tailers will relocate their events, Hindi said, “If you turn on the light, the cockroaches run under the refrigerator. If you move the refrigerator, they run under the stove. We expect them to keep moving. We’ll be moving too, wherever they go.”
Explained the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness and Humane Farming Association of their joint application for an injunction against the July 18, 2026 coleadero, “For years, SHARK has used drone footage to document ongoing animal abuse and permit violations at Rancho La Esperanza. Previously, Ogle County’s Planning and Zoning Committee,” on June 9, 2026, “unanimously voted to revoke the venue’s special use permit; however, the full Ogle County Board delayed enacting the closure.”
Said Hindi then, “This lawsuit is a direct result of the failures of Ogle County state’s attorney Mike Rock, sheriff Brian VanVickle, the entire Ogle County Board, and the Illinois Department of Agriculture to do their jobs. We are taking this emergency legal action to stop the constant extreme and illegal animal abuse and ensure the Illinois Humane Care for Animals Act is strictly enforced.”
Exposed Rancho La Esperanza cruelty 21 times
The injunction aims to immediately halt the July 18 event and prevent further instances of what advocates classify as extreme and illegal animal abuse.
Showing Animals Respect & Kindness drone videos have since 2022 exposed extensive violence at Rancho La Esperanza to both steers and horses on 21 separate occasions.
On May 24, 2026, for example, the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness drone videos documented 14 separate instances in which the tails of steers were degloved
(See Ogle County last in Illinois to move rears re steer-tailing, alleges SHARK.)
VanVickle meanwhile stalled in response to Freedom of Information Act requests filled by Showing Animals Respect & Kindness employee Cindy Malley to the extent of attracting a warning from assistant Illinois attorney general Katie Goldsmith, issued on behalf of the state Public Access Bureau. Goldsmith gave VanVickle seven days from July 9, 2026 to respond.
Four counties acted sooner
The apparent end of coleadero at Rancho La Esperanza came nearly two months after Hindi heralded the arrival of the 2026 rodeo season by celebrating that, “As we enter our fifth year of exposing the illegal animal abuse at steer tailing events, Boone, Will, DeKalb, and McHenry counties,” formerly hosting four of the five major steer-tailing venues in Illinois, with Ogle County hosting the fifth, “have taken significant steps to reduce or in some cases eliminate the illegal cruelty associated with steer tailing in their jurisdictions.
“Three years ago,” Hindi recalled, “we were tracking two to three events every weekend,” with both drone and on-the-ground surveillance.
“Now that number is down to just two a month, on average,” Hindi said.
“Every year prior,” Hindi recounted, “riders were mercilessly beating horses; today,” after several successful prosecutions of horse-beaters, “we rarely see it.
“In the past,” Hindi added, “steers were repeatedly shocked or stabbed. This year, we have yet to document a single electric prod or sharpened stick.”
Last holdout county had fewest Latinos
“Ogle,” Hindi said, had become “the only county where we still see these events regularly.”
Ogle County, on the U.S. political map, is perhaps most noted for having voted Republican in every national election since 1856.
Coleadero defenders, other than promoters and participants, over the duration of the Showing Animals Respect & Kindness campaign against it have been conspicuously non-Latino, with the sole exception of Illinois public radio reporter Maria Gardner Lara, but have argued that coleadero is an important part of Latino cultural heritage.
The demographics of the five counties where coleadero persisted tell a different story. Boone County, 24% Latino, was first to act against it, followed by Will County, 16% Latino; McHenry County, 15% Latino; McHenry County, 13.5% Latino, and DeKalb County, also 13.5% Latino.
Ogle County, just 11% Latino, was the last holdout.
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Great respect for Steve Hindi for his relentless efforts to end such blatant cruelty and to his supporters including Animals 24-7.
And I hope that law breakers like VanVickle and Rock get their just desserts.
Absolutely great work and attention given to these poor animals who suffered and finally proper justice to protect them from cowards in society.
CONGRATS TO SHARK and HFA! This brutal event should be outlawed everywhere. There’s good precedent. Two California counties (Alameda, 1993 and Contra Costa, 1994) banned this cruelty, and the State of Nebraska did so in 2008, the only state to have done so.
Activists everywhere should be approaching the County Board of Supervisors and State Legislatures for similar actions.
Again, “steer tailing” is not a standard ranching practice anywhere in the U.S
x
Eric Mills, coordinator
ACTION FOR ANIMALS
Oakland, CA
Steer-tailing is one of the SICKEST animal tortures I have ever heard of, and there’s certainly no shortage of horrible things humans do to animals. I applaud Steve Hindi/SHARK for his unrelenting efforts on this and other forms of vicious cruelty. This is a big step towards ending this vile business.
The only reason I am grateful for having ever learned about this detestable animal treatment is that now I know NEVER to support JD Pritzker if he makes a run for president, because he did absolutely NOTHING to stop this and then played dumb when Jodi Wiederkehr of Showing Animals Respect & Kindness confronted him on the issue. That showed his character or lack thereof. He should be ahsamed of himself.
I don’t know what has to happen to a person for them to be that desensitized to pain and suffering senselessly inflicted on other living beings. And I don’t want to know.
Big props to Steve Hindi and everyone involved in lessening the suffering in this case. And thanking you for updating us.
As did other supporters of Steve Hindi and SHARK’s noble efforts to end the horrendous cruelty of Rodeo events and in this specific case ,the vile, unconscionable ‘steer-tailing’ event, it is with enormous joy and relief that I learn that, for now, this will not now take place.
As did they, I wrote and wrote repeatedly to plead that they discontinue this event, though I do expect that it will be occurring in other venues, as your piece suggests.
Advocates will continue to protest it vehemently wherever we find it. Like the perpetrators of such despicable acts of cruelty, who ply their vile acts under the guise of spurious ‘Mexican tradition’, we also never give up. There is never, under ANY circumstance, an excuse for cruelty to animals!
Thank you for this very welcome post!
Excellent progress! Kudos to SHARK and HFA – well done.
Congratulations, Steve, and everyone involved in stopping this horrific steer-tailing event. I’m so glad the abuse from this event is over! Thanks, everyone, for all your hard work. It’s greatly appreciated!!