Black family's North Carolina arena draws thousands to Mexican concerts

North Carolina Latino population grew from 76,000 to over 1.1 million

Donal Gooch was raised on the family land in Eagle Rock when eastern Wake County was still tobacco country. He revived the family’s dormant horse traditions during his adolescence and co-founded a saddle club in college at North Carolina A&T State University. In 2003, he met Cuco, a Mexican concert promoter who had moved to North Carolina from Mexico at age 13 and spent a dozen years playing keyboard and accordion on tour. Donal told Cuco he had land where he could throw big concerts. Cuco told his partner: “I don’t think he’s got shit.”

Cuco saw the land, then brought what he called “cowboy entertainment” — starting with coleadero, a charrería event where vaqueros try to yank bulls down by their tails, then moving to concerts under the Carolina sun, and finally to Donal building an enclosed arena to beat the heat. Today the Gooch Sports Arena hosts bands playing cumbia, mariachi, norteño and banda music twice a month. The arena also schedules jaripeos — bull-riding festivals — and displays of carros tumbados, or low-riders. Donal said that nearby gas stations sometimes sell out of fuel and food and that “everybody makes money off me” when ticket sales peak.

Cuco’s 38-year-old nephew and co-worker, Daniel Ponce, described the events as a “de-stressor” for a community working 45- to 60-hour weeks. Ponce said that business had been booming for promoters like himself and Cuco, but that Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in North Carolina doubled in 2025. He said he recently canceled a concert in South Carolina because of ICE enforcement. “We’re not gonna penalize somebody or force somebody to come out when they’re afraid,” Ponce said.

Since 2025, touring Mexican bands have also had trouble securing visas, Ponce said, while others have had their visas revoked. The bands still touring the United States raised their rates, and Donal and Cuco said it now costs between $180,000 and $300,000 to put on a concert at the arena. Security runs over $25,000 per show. “I’m not only talking about ICE, immigration and the raids,” Ponce said. “I’m also talking about the economy, the cost of gas, the war that we’re facing overseas, all that’s impacting the economy.”

Donal’s daughter Caitlin, 33, came of age as the region grew. She lives on the property with three of her children in a house beside a weathered barn and a quarter-horse racetrack known as Eagle Rock Downs. Caitlin runs Saddle Up and Read, a nonprofit that teaches children to read with the assistance of her miniature horse, Man Man, and she hosts summer camps teaching equestrian care. She has appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, the Washington Post and Vogue, and has accumulated tens of thousands of social media followers. She said she crowdfunds when the farm floods or the nonprofit’s truck breaks down.

The 12-acre family plot sits at the fringe of the Research Triangle, one of the nation’s fastest-growing metropolitan areas in its third fastest-growing state. Wendell Falls, a decade-old, 1,100-acre subdivision born from a partnership between Japanese and Canadian real-estate conglomerates, broke ground on the north end of the family land in 2022. Half-built houses are a three-minute walk from Caitlin’s back steps. The town of Wendell’s extraterritorial jurisdiction covers the arena, and Wendell decreed that amplified sound would be permitted only on Saturdays between 1 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. and that off-duty law enforcement must be hired for all events. “They can tell us what to do,” Donal said. “We don’t have no jurisdiction, we don’t have no vote, no nothing in the city of Wendell.”

Caitlin’s cousin on the Hall side of the family, Ron Goodson, owns 25 acres across the street. He said developers want to build 200 townhomes on the plot. “If I could get, you know, five and a half million for my property, I would think about it seriously,” Goodson said.

The family land serves as a gathering place for a multicultural horse culture that connects longtime Black residents and newer Latino arrivals. Harrison Todd, 37, who grew up alongside Caitlin on the trail-riding circuit, said he now owns eight acres in a neighboring county and works as a firefighter. “Every time I go out, I always hear someone say, ‘I’ve never seen a Black cowboy,’ or I’ve never touched a horse,” Todd said. He pointed at his son and his son’s friend, who is Mexican, and said: “They like brothers.”

About Donal, Ponce said: “He might be African American, but I think everybody that comes in this place just sees him as another Mexican.” Donal said he intends to revive the quarter-horse track, turn an old Baskin-Robbins ice-cream trailer into a bar, and start a wedding venue on his land. “You can’t retire. You’ll die,” he said.