K_Salonelk said "In my opinion, mules will not out work a well breed horses for most people."
Probably true,but that is not the mules fault, it's the handler or trainer.
However, it has been proven time amd time again that given a mule and a horse of the same size, a mule will out work that horse every time given the same degree of training.In fact a smaller mule will usually out work that bigger horse. Add excessive heat to the equation and the horse will quit, or even die far ahead of the mule. Look at all the long range endurance races and compare how many mules have won vs how many horses. Go to some puling events and compare a 2500 lb team of mules a to a 2500 lb team of horses. The mules out pull the horses every time in categories that compare the percenatge of thier weight to how much they pull. In fact, most pulls will not let mules compete directly with horses anymore.In just about any species of animal,the hybrid will out do the straight lineage.At the turn of the century and a little before,there were actually more mules being worked in harness than horses. During the western expansion, inS t Louis, mules would consistently bring twice to three times more in dollars than teams of horses and would be worth even more when they reached thier destination.
As I mentioned before,with horse or mules, there are certian breeds that do certain jobs better than others. The traditional stock horse as you mentioned has been bred for a long time to be cowey, have lots of stamina and have good legs and feet.
A lot of these good horses are still being bred on ranches that still use the horse as thier main tool of working cattle.
Unfortunately though, many more of the breeds have been so modified for the show ring that they would not stand up to the rigors for which they were originally intended. Sad to say,we are seeing the same thing now days with good saddle mules. Small feet,heavy frames and pencil thin legs.
Barrel racers, cutting horses, roping horses, etc. have all had thier lineage tailored specifically for the task they are meant to handle. But how many of those task specific horses can be driven, packed and ridden.
The heavy horses ( draft horse are a misnomer.You use heavy breed,cold bloods to do draft work)have been bred with excessivley long legs which puts them too high to give good pulling capabilities. The 1/4 horses have been bred with disporportionate body size for thier feet and legs, leading to unsoundness in earlier yrs. The morgans have been bred up in size from thier original lineage. Little 13 hd halflingers that commonly are 13 hds are now showing up at 14 &1/2 + hds. Appalosas now do not even have to show color to be registered. Pick just about any breed and you can find the same thing.
It has been my experince ( which includes a lot of years) that cowboys working cattle with horses are the hardest to to get riding a mule. Probably because the mule takes longer and requires more patiencet o train and most working ranches do not have time as a luxury. Tradition has a lot to do with it also. In addition, few younger cowboys have yet to develope the certain attitude required to work with a mule. A lot of them let thier predjudices over rule thier common sense.
