Folks need to go to some of these all mule rodeos to see mules being cowey. They can rope,head or heel, pen, cut with the best of them.
Heck,most competition in horse related arena events or such won't even allow mules to compete with horses as they usually walk away with all the trophies. Put them in a long distance endurance race and they win most of them.
There use to be a fellow down in the 4 corners area, Doyle Hill, who ran bunch of Walker mares and quarter horse mares, which he bred for mules. He had about 75 foals per year. The cowboys of AZ and NV sure liked them long legged walker mules. Much more so than the quarter horse mules. Doyle ran about 40 head of each and to buy one of those walker mules, you had to pay 1/2 of the price when the mare was bred and the other half when it was weaned. I bought several of them and sometimes I had to wait two years in line to get one.
Out in CA ,they use a lot of mules for cow work and seem to get along fine. Not saying mules will ever take over doing cow work, but there are some good ones out there doing it. A lot of folks let thier predjudice out weigh common sense about these things.
30-40 years ago people did breed sorry mares for mules and it has taken a lot of time and effort to convince folks that if you breed good mares to good jacks, you come out of it with darn good saddle mules with good dispositiosn and good confirmation.
My first mules were pretty much as Atkinson described, and you could buy them all day long for $150-$200. Now days to buy a good weanling, you best dig deep into your pockets.
Back in the 80's we worked hard to get mules back into competition at the Denver Stock Show. The first year out of a class of 27, my wife took 1st in side saddle competition and went on to win high point mule in the Americam Donkey and Mule Society for side saddel competition that year and then the next year took fist place,International Side Saddle mule.She has a room full of ribbons, trophies, and loving cups for Emglish and Western Pleaure, Trail, Driving, Halter and a Gymkhana events and such, all done with the same mule. Pretty hard to convince her that a mule can't do it all.
We never competed in cow classes as I don't consider the cow a companion animal and I don't play with them.
Some days catch the Bishop Mule days over Memorial Day week end in CA or Jake Clark's sale up in Powell WY if you want to see some good mules.
I realize there ain't no way anyone is going to convince a old cowboy to switch to a mule, but I have been riding and using these critters for 40 yrs now.I don't havee a horse on the place. I like to look at good horses and appreciate them as much as anybody, but my only use for them is to make mules.
In all my years I have never met one person who switched to riding a mule that has swicthed back to riding horses.Those short eared affairs are just too darn dumb acting for my liking.
