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Speaker 1: arms dot com. My name is Clay Nukeleman. I'm the
Speaker 1: host of the Bear Hunting Magazine podcast. I'll also be
Speaker 1: your host into the world of hunting the icon of
Speaker 1: the North American Wilderness Fair. We'll talk about tactics, gear conservation,
Speaker 1: but will also bring you into some of the wildest
Speaker 1: country on the planet chasing back. As many of you
Speaker 1: would know, I love using mules to get into the
Speaker 1: back country. We've had a lot of We do a
Speaker 1: lot of our hunting no mules, and I get a
Speaker 1: ton of questions about mules, like how do you get started,
Speaker 1: what makes a good mule, where do you buy mule?
Speaker 1: How much does a mule cost? What makes a mule
Speaker 1: better than a horse? Or or or why would why
Speaker 1: would people use them over a horse? It's a better question.
Speaker 1: Lloyd Holly is a national expert on mules. He's been raising, training,
Speaker 1: selling riding mules for over thirty years, and he is
Speaker 1: uh he is an expert. We have a really good
Speaker 1: conversation that gets into the nut and bolts of mules.
Speaker 1: And if you listen to this the whole whole thing,
Speaker 1: through its entirety, you'll know more about mules than than
Speaker 1: most people do. And uh So this can be used
Speaker 1: as a resource for you if you're interested in getting
Speaker 1: in mules, or or just want to know some good
Speaker 1: intel on an iconic equine animal. Be sure to check
Speaker 1: out W Hunting Supply for all of your hound hunting
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Speaker 1: is known for their customer service. They're known for their
Speaker 1: dedication to the hound sports and they're a family owned
Speaker 1: and operated business. My friend Buddy Woodberry and his family
Speaker 1: run the business and they are experts in their field.
Speaker 1: Check out w Hunting Supply for anything you need has
Speaker 1: to do with dogs. So we're at the Hollywood Mule Farm. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm here with Mr Lloyd Holly and I got Colby
Speaker 1: the bar Tech Morehead with me. But it's a beautiful
Speaker 1: June morning, isn't it, Mr Lloyd? Yes it is. We
Speaker 1: we've been fortunate in some ways. She had a lot
Speaker 1: of rain this year. In other ways it's rainoys delaysia
Speaker 1: couldn't hay first cuttn't Yeah, but it pulps you out
Speaker 1: later on in hot summer. Yes, yes, well it's kind
Speaker 1: of turned summertime on us. Uh. It's it's been pretty hot,
Speaker 1: but I guess that's what it's supposed to do in
Speaker 1: late June and Arkansas. Well, I'm no old timer, but
Speaker 1: this way to spring I can remember. Really. Yeah. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: Mr Lloyd, I've got a ton of questions for you. Um,
Speaker 1: So you have been in the mule business for how long?
Speaker 1: Thirty three? Years thirty three years and tell me this
Speaker 1: kind of give me an overview of of what you
Speaker 1: do with Hollywood mule farms. Well, I could say I
Speaker 1: started from the beginning. I grew up on horses, you know,
Speaker 1: and I've lived I was born and graced here in
Speaker 1: bray Grove, Arkansas, except in three years when we moved
Speaker 1: to Idaho when I was in the first second third
Speaker 1: grade and my dad and uncle caught wild mustangs out
Speaker 1: of while he mountains and near the Snake River, and
Speaker 1: we broke them and so sold him for extra money.
Speaker 1: You know. That's where I learned to ride mustangs. And
Speaker 1: uh we do. We put about thirty days training on
Speaker 1: him and then sell them. Really, so that's what you
Speaker 1: your family did for the three years there in Idaho.
Speaker 1: Or did y'all go up there and catch them and
Speaker 1: bring him back here? Oh? No, we were. We lived there, okay,
Speaker 1: but we're just on them. On that note, we found
Speaker 1: out in our experience and then we trained a bunch
Speaker 1: of them, was that if they got to be four
Speaker 1: years old, you they were, it wasn't too late to
Speaker 1: train them, but it was a lot harder. You can
Speaker 1: train them when they were two and three year olds. Well,
Speaker 1: we tried several of the four and five six year
Speaker 1: olds and and in time he might have come around,
Speaker 1: but they weren't quick learners. And but I got thrown
Speaker 1: up without his saggurating puppy five hundred times. Wow. But
Speaker 1: we rode a lot of barback. We had a railroad
Speaker 1: track riding, and uh, it's all me and my first cousin,
Speaker 1: same age, and that's all we did summers after and
Speaker 1: before school. And he's ride those mustangs and my dad
Speaker 1: uncle not a three hundred, three hundred hundred fifty arena,
Speaker 1: if you will, a big d and and then it
Speaker 1: took a couple of smaller ones and that's where we're
Speaker 1: starting them all. And of course we weren't. I did
Speaker 1: not know about horse whisper, yeah, that stuff, you know.
Speaker 1: But when we learned a few things, and we did
Speaker 1: a lot of the same things, and I just didn't
Speaker 1: call them mad. But our our theory west to give
Speaker 1: him started and said, we stubbed him up to a
Speaker 1: pony horse. And the way we went, yeah, and so
Speaker 1: you would you would, you'd put them with a broke
Speaker 1: course and then times of the broke course, and now
Speaker 1: you just lead them around to desensitize them, or you'd
Speaker 1: ride them. We rode them, you'd have somebody on the Yeah,
Speaker 1: they didn't buck theer as hard, but they take sure
Speaker 1: fight at they They had to have a pretty have
Speaker 1: rider on the pony horse because they must thing would
Speaker 1: be up in the saddle a lot of times and
Speaker 1: so but so you learn to not be afraid of
Speaker 1: a bucking equine animal at that point. That was had
Speaker 1: a long time ago. But we just get back up
Speaker 1: and go again, you know, and pretty soon it's like
Speaker 1: round in training now. We we would take my cousin,
Speaker 1: I would get on one. It was just thirty days
Speaker 1: broken and good new loading, and and we just run
Speaker 1: them round and round and round around rich and pat
Speaker 1: him round and around around, and we're soon just let
Speaker 1: you pat him, you know. Yeah. And so take me
Speaker 1: from there to how you got in the mules. Well,
Speaker 1: we moved back to Arkansas and have been here ever since.
Speaker 1: But um we we we we always had horses and
Speaker 1: for some reason, well one reason was I'd always wanted
Speaker 1: a pair of mules for driving working team, and I
Speaker 1: didn't really think about riding them at that point. But
Speaker 1: they're pulling a wagon or pulling, pulling logs or something
Speaker 1: a card or anything. And but my one grandfather used
Speaker 1: mules a lot, and I liked them, and and I
Speaker 1: always want so after I got married and got we
Speaker 1: botched horses, and the whole family went trail riding. But
Speaker 1: I found this pair of mules and about fourteen two,
Speaker 1: and I bought them and in the bot that's their height, yes,
Speaker 1: sort team too, yeah, and about a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: horse drawn equipment to work them with. Of course there
Speaker 1: was a lot of trouble, but it was what I
Speaker 1: wanted to do. And and but being riders and the
Speaker 1: oldest son being about twelve years old at that time,
Speaker 1: we hadn't broke the ride no time. And then we
Speaker 1: found out just from personal experience that on a trail
Speaker 1: riding that they were superior to the horse, just on average.
Speaker 1: You can't say a blanket everyone goes better than ever
Speaker 1: horse or vice versa. But but anyway, they were much
Speaker 1: more sure footed and much more of a self preservationist
Speaker 1: type of animal. And whereas a horse will painting lots
Speaker 1: quicker than the mule and rare up or fall over.
Speaker 1: And yeah, I remember one time I got off the
Speaker 1: trail and it was about thirty riders of the Devil's
Speaker 1: nand and there's pretty rocky trails and they're looking nothing
Speaker 1: but the feet and horse pretty much knew where his
Speaker 1: front feet was, but basically the back feet just fall
Speaker 1: wherever they were. And here comes to move mu along,
Speaker 1: and he's picking between rocks and just staying nothing. There's
Speaker 1: much chance to loosen his balance, you know. And the
Speaker 1: rougher and steeper got, the better the mule shines over
Speaker 1: the horse. I see. You know, that's a good That's
Speaker 1: the best description of the sure footedness of am old
Speaker 1: that I've heard, because I've experienced what you're saying. But
Speaker 1: you're saying that horse knows where his front feet are,
Speaker 1: but his back feet just going wherever. Where a mule
Speaker 1: is just he's picking up all his feet and putting
Speaker 1: them right where he wants him. Well, one thing, and
Speaker 1: I can't prove it scientifically, but I've been told, and
Speaker 1: I think so from my experiences, that mule can seize
Speaker 1: back feet and the horse canned, okay, because of positioning
Speaker 1: of his eyes. I just tell you a lot on
Speaker 1: an animal, how what they're set on the head. And see, uh,
Speaker 1: of course we're predators and are fishing comes together pretty
Speaker 1: quickly and pray animals. Sur vision doesn't not there. They're
Speaker 1: focused on half mile away or quarter mile or whatever.
Speaker 1: And if you get closer to an object and it's
Speaker 1: done a good point. A lot of people can don't
Speaker 1: figure out why a mule spooks set a stump, rock
Speaker 1: or holding the ground or something wonder student's not moving
Speaker 1: or anything. Well, can't focus on it. There's this reason. Okay,
Speaker 1: where do you where you right eye vision makes your
Speaker 1: left eye vision, that's your focal point. And on a
Speaker 1: horse or munich the different. But six or eight or
Speaker 1: ten ft before the crosses. Yeah, of course, being a
Speaker 1: bray animal um having you we do you want something
Speaker 1: to run and get away their visions further out? I see,
Speaker 1: I see. So you by owning these mules, having grown
Speaker 1: up your whole life with horses, and then you got
Speaker 1: these mules and you saw for yourself that they were
Speaker 1: in the woods, on a trail ride, in a lot
Speaker 1: of functional ways. As a saddle animal they were. You
Speaker 1: felt like they were superior to a horse, and so
Speaker 1: that fueled your desire to get more into him. I guess,
Speaker 1: well partly, and there another thing the mule does. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's any in the stuff you say. It just has exceptions.
Speaker 1: But basically, a mule does not wear up, does not
Speaker 1: get off the front end, does not to their head.
Speaker 1: If you notice the horse starts getting nervous about something,
Speaker 1: he starts fidgeting and jumping off his front feeding and
Speaker 1: throwing his head up and then maybe rear up and
Speaker 1: maybe fall over. Okay, And you just rarely see a
Speaker 1: mule do that. So okay, that's another reason it makes
Speaker 1: me more surefooted. And another reason that it makes the
Speaker 1: rider more confident. Yeah, you know you you can get
Speaker 1: a little nervous if you were to real good experience
Speaker 1: rider and your horse starts doing all that messing up
Speaker 1: down And is that? Is that the way a lot
Speaker 1: of horse rex happen is a horse rearing up on
Speaker 1: its front end. I mean that's kind of like the
Speaker 1: classic Western scene, you know, as this horse rearing up
Speaker 1: on its on its front end. I mean, is that
Speaker 1: how I guess? Well, there's more just a par part
Speaker 1: of it, but it's more to the pointed, in a
Speaker 1: moment of crashes, a horse doesn't care if it hurts
Speaker 1: you or him or if he goes over the cliff
Speaker 1: or while he's going somewhere. Yeah, and the mule being
Speaker 1: a more self pasuration is not that they can't can't
Speaker 1: run away also, but they said, oh, it's always down there,
Speaker 1: I want to stay on a trail. Yeah, you know
Speaker 1: that kind of a situation. And why do you think
Speaker 1: that is? It's it's you know, I guess to even
Speaker 1: take it back to the very basics. A mule and
Speaker 1: most people would know this, but a mule is the
Speaker 1: cross between a male donkey and a female horse, so
Speaker 1: jack donkey and a mayor horse. So why would uh,
Speaker 1: why do you think a mule is naturally more self
Speaker 1: preserving than a horse because he's half donkey or more
Speaker 1: and a donkey's avery self protecting. Is that correct? Well said,
Speaker 1: you have self preservations. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you take it.
Speaker 1: I tell people all the time they want to learn
Speaker 1: how to ride a mule, is I'm a donkey and
Speaker 1: try to train the donkey and then nicking more clearly,
Speaker 1: better to evaluate the mule and understand it because people
Speaker 1: are more just relate to the horse side of the mule,
Speaker 1: not being a criticize him, but because many people have
Speaker 1: a tend a donkey or anything to do with them,
Speaker 1: so they don't have a clue. They think there he
Speaker 1: just having an awful day. But if you if you
Speaker 1: can understand the donkey side O what you said, No,
Speaker 1: that's the donkey coming down anyway, So you can deal
Speaker 1: with them and train and retain them a lot better
Speaker 1: if you understand. In my opinion, I think the donkey
Speaker 1: m hmm yeah. So what would be the what would
Speaker 1: be those characteristics? How would you describe those? Because you know,
Speaker 1: what I kind of want to do is describe why
Speaker 1: would somebody want a mule? That's the question I get,
Speaker 1: Mr Lloyd with people that are considering, you know, in
Speaker 1: for our context, these guys are considering how to get
Speaker 1: into the back country, how to pack in, how to
Speaker 1: stay longer in there, so they're not just joy riding.
Speaker 1: They're trying to use these animals. And they asked me
Speaker 1: why would I get a mule over a horse? You know?
Speaker 1: And I think you've described in one way, you know,
Speaker 1: like the the surefootedness and the safety, the potential safety
Speaker 1: of a a good mule, and not like you said,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be some mules that are dangerous as they
Speaker 1: can be, just because they're not trained, they're not broke,
Speaker 1: they're not good animals. Forever ever horse story, you can
Speaker 1: tell me the mule said, I could tell you ten
Speaker 1: more for horses said, you know, okay, because you hear
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, oh, don't ride a mule
Speaker 1: showing on and so fell off of them in brokish
Speaker 1: neck into what I'm bucked around well shoulder horses, you know,
Speaker 1: but that's minor part. But you take it like a
Speaker 1: long and self persuasion and steal. If you're doing a
Speaker 1: round pain work with your dog, with your mule, and
Speaker 1: you know, if you put a horse in a round
Speaker 1: pain I worked last year. I worked a three year
Speaker 1: old horse for a friend of mine around Ben and
Speaker 1: I took a halter and the leader let him in
Speaker 1: the round pan and turned the blues and I just
Speaker 1: shook my halter and he must have galloped twenty rounds
Speaker 1: around the round pion. Four year stopped and I shake
Speaker 1: it again. And typical, especially you've done broke one. But
Speaker 1: you take a mule, you can earn you most of them.
Speaker 1: Whn go for shake your halter, you know, to get
Speaker 1: after him, make him walking. You really got to get
Speaker 1: after him to make him canter. And round pain because
Speaker 1: it's kind of like I tell people after the second
Speaker 1: trip around the around pen, they've seen everything out there,
Speaker 1: you know what, what what more reason could you want
Speaker 1: me to be out here? Yeah? Yeah, so the reaction
Speaker 1: of that horse was more extreme than the reaction of
Speaker 1: the mule. Yes, is that a way to describe what
Speaker 1: you're saying? Well, that's part of it. There. They're more
Speaker 1: of a fast twitch muscle animal and donkeys are slow
Speaker 1: twitch mussel animal, kind of like a hunder charge sprinter
Speaker 1: and a mile distance runner. You know, Yeah, you see
Speaker 1: there with some guys on track running a mile or
Speaker 1: eights or whatever. Yeah, there's a little skinny dudes. You
Speaker 1: don't have any extra way, no muscle mash on him
Speaker 1: to build up heat came with the horses taking an
Speaker 1: air brunched a long way. She's not got a big
Speaker 1: quarter horse hip on him. And yeah yeah, So so
Speaker 1: take me into every time, Well, take me into how
Speaker 1: you got into training them and selling them, and and
Speaker 1: and he made this lifestyle or a career. But I
Speaker 1: could say, well, after I bought the team, my son
Speaker 1: and I started riding them trail rides. And one day
Speaker 1: we were on a trail ride and somebody says, were
Speaker 1: you going to the meal show at such a such
Speaker 1: a town? You know what massour? We said, a meal show?
Speaker 1: What's that? M hm? And they told us, well, it's
Speaker 1: just like a horse show, and you do it with mules,
Speaker 1: same things, tending to have more fun events than the
Speaker 1: horse shows to average horse show. So we we my son,
Speaker 1: I told her mules up and we went up there
Speaker 1: and we said where do you go to Richard? So
Speaker 1: they had to class list there, just sectaries desk and
Speaker 1: we looked down through there and we didn't hard to
Speaker 1: know want any of those things were. They were running
Speaker 1: the classes, but we hited everyone of them. And of
Speaker 1: course our meals were untrained, and they got a little
Speaker 1: bit unruly with us because we kept pushing them for
Speaker 1: speed different events and we did Western Western pleasure in
Speaker 1: bar Ratio and everything in between. You but we had
Speaker 1: more fun than you can imagine, and then the first
Speaker 1: question we had was worse the next show. And in
Speaker 1: the meantime we started training our meals at home to
Speaker 1: get ready for the show. So we did that for
Speaker 1: a while. I didn't realized and it's not going to work.
Speaker 1: These mules are plowed mules draft on drafted with horners
Speaker 1: type mules, not speed mules, and so and so forth.
Speaker 1: So I've always been one to try to have the
Speaker 1: best I could and whatever it is. And um so
Speaker 1: I bought two back in early eighties. I bought two
Speaker 1: meals and give five thousand dollars piece for him. But
Speaker 1: they were we started winning. They were because I recognized
Speaker 1: that the ability, but they didn't the writer did not
Speaker 1: have the ability to complete, to finish my fine tune
Speaker 1: them for training. But then we started winning, and then
Speaker 1: people wanted to buy our mules. Okay. So I've always
Speaker 1: been one if the price is right, it's for sale,
Speaker 1: and so I'd sell. I sold the wife's mule all
Speaker 1: the time. Yeah, the kids mules. Yeah, my daughter she
Speaker 1: had this good mual and I lift it up to
Speaker 1: her when she wanted to sell it, and he won.
Speaker 1: She won all kinds of stuff with him the shows
Speaker 1: for years. Was shot righting when she was nine, and
Speaker 1: then she picked out this that at this point was
Speaker 1: a little boy was trying to compete at the mule shows.
Speaker 1: This meal wasn't you're good enough? And he was crying
Speaker 1: and and so but Arner said, Dad, when I could
Speaker 1: read set little blue. I want that little boy to
Speaker 1: having mm hmm. So we've become good friends with him.
Speaker 1: And it was John Higgins and his son, John Jr.
Speaker 1: That they're doing really quite well. That anyway, then that
Speaker 1: blossomed out to work. At one point there we were
Speaker 1: doing twenty five shows a year. Okay, you were competing, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you were also selling mules, so you were you
Speaker 1: were gathering up mules and trying to find the best ones. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I didn't get purposely in what you might call the
Speaker 1: quote trading business. It just kind of chucked me and
Speaker 1: just kind of happened on its own. I just And
Speaker 1: then your last name was Holly, and so you had
Speaker 1: the perfect marketing Hollywood. Yes, Hollywood's hollywoods. Yeah. A lot
Speaker 1: of people think I took that after Hollywood, California, but
Speaker 1: I didn't. Okay, Okay, maybe I missed it. My sister
Speaker 1: married the last name of Woods, Okay. And we at
Speaker 1: one point we bought some Richard cattle together, and we
Speaker 1: had to have a prefix to put on their name,
Speaker 1: so we should wretch Hollywood's letter for letter. You know,
Speaker 1: you know, I drove out this place for years and
Speaker 1: years before I had met you, and I was just like,
Speaker 1: this guy's a marketing genius. Hollywood's well, let's just worked
Speaker 1: our advantage certainly. Yeah, but anyway, I kept training mules
Speaker 1: and I'm trained. I just trained one. So I had
Speaker 1: one ride, didn't get a certain points, somebody by get
Speaker 1: another one and pursuon. I was in the mule business. Yeah.
Speaker 1: At one point we for what to speak of my operations,
Speaker 1: we had for three or four years, we had over
Speaker 1: hundred head wow, horses, mules, donkeys, and we stood three
Speaker 1: Jackson read around two hundred marriage here. Wow. So you
Speaker 1: were so then you became you weren't selling well you
Speaker 1: would have been selling finished mules, but you were also
Speaker 1: selling colts. Yeah. At that point, I don't I don't
Speaker 1: consider myself ever being in trading business, but I was
Speaker 1: in the marketing and Richelle been a totally integrated program,
Speaker 1: you know what, Yeah, having a marriage ration, the coach standing,
Speaker 1: Jack breaking, the coach ride, we're going outside, mules train.
Speaker 1: We shipped out of semen and equitainers all over the country. Really,
Speaker 1: so you had jacks that were that in demand that
Speaker 1: you were selling semen across the country. Now, what what
Speaker 1: makes uh man that's what I remember from twenty years ago.
Speaker 1: We we lived in pray Grow for a time, so
Speaker 1: I just around man this big old mammoth jacks or something.
Speaker 1: And for people that are listening, if you've never seen
Speaker 1: a picture of a mammoth jack, go type that in
Speaker 1: the internet. Pretty incredible animals. Did you You had some
Speaker 1: good ones, didn't you? Yeah? Well, I bought what I
Speaker 1: thought was good When he was good Jack. Colonel Bean
Speaker 1: called him, he uh was gating Jack, about fifty four inches,
Speaker 1: real clean bond why tween hawks and good head? Good
Speaker 1: head and I mean without a smaller head near and
Speaker 1: not too small. But I realized for trail riding he
Speaker 1: was great. Every one of his coach moved out, I
Speaker 1: mean bubils had some type of gate to him or
Speaker 1: easy mood. But then I realized I had all those
Speaker 1: good marriage. I read him too, and it just wasn't
Speaker 1: quite getting all the second third places. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: getting an outstanding mule had haled her to win with.
Speaker 1: So that's when I started looking for Donner Jack. I
Speaker 1: bought in a whole lot better Jack, and I started
Speaker 1: having world champions a halter, tell me what that means.
Speaker 1: World champion halter. Well, that's certain. Just like a court
Speaker 1: horse says their world show every year, it's it's a
Speaker 1: peak of the shows, supposed to be the best show
Speaker 1: in the nation, you know, okay, West Inter's national levels
Speaker 1: level show. What what events are these animals competing in?
Speaker 1: They would make the world champion? Well like that for instance,
Speaker 1: So what's just talking about? There would just be world
Speaker 1: champion halter mule. That that that's totally just awful looks yes, okay,
Speaker 1: And then there would be all shows are combined do
Speaker 1: speed events in one category would ride up in divisions,
Speaker 1: and so you'd have like six or seven divisional world
Speaker 1: champion winners and then you'd have the one high point
Speaker 1: all of over the whole show. Okay, okay, but it
Speaker 1: didn't you start off so with just a little fun
Speaker 1: play days we do the egg and spoon and sack
Speaker 1: race and bareback switch and all this stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: which is fun. Yeah, we got a hat truck coming
Speaker 1: by us. Um so these uh halts, So that that's
Speaker 1: good information. So halter mule, that would just be totally
Speaker 1: going off esthetics of a mule. What what? So you
Speaker 1: know I've had mules now for five years, and I mean,
Speaker 1: I know what I think looks good in a mule,
Speaker 1: and I know what good feet are. You know what
Speaker 1: makes what makes a world champion halter mule halter confirmation
Speaker 1: would be saying, with any breed of animals, you chad,
Speaker 1: wat's the most desirable way to have us have a
Speaker 1: model mule, in other words, to compare everything against and
Speaker 1: of course not having a like dairy and beef and horses.
Speaker 1: They have a painting a picture drawing the ideal type
Speaker 1: horse or gal. Mules haven't done that by the mere
Speaker 1: fact that nine of your mule writers are rebels. Rentengage,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of independence, you know, and you don't.
Speaker 1: I don't like to be told what to do and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. And in some extent you've got to
Speaker 1: be have some of that to deal with your mule,
Speaker 1: because they'll they'll put back in your face if if
Speaker 1: you don't have some bit of aggressiveness to you, then
Speaker 1: they'll take advantage of you. And not you can't get
Speaker 1: a lot done with them, but you've got to cut
Speaker 1: a lot of compromising. And eighty or nine percent of
Speaker 1: the people that owned mules have never made them do anything.
Speaker 1: They've trained them to do this in that, but comprise
Speaker 1: with it gets too much, we can't handle it. Then
Speaker 1: they're working somewhere else. Yeah, it's likely what was on Traver.
Speaker 1: I had one. I'm gonna this. Lady had this horse,
Speaker 1: and everybody been bragging on how good he was. Well
Speaker 1: we come to this little wasn't even creek stream. It
Speaker 1: was just wide ditch, had the water running in it,
Speaker 1: and everybody had about twenty on the ride, and everybody's
Speaker 1: animals just went right across it except hers. And he
Speaker 1: just come right up there and and right what she should.
Speaker 1: She spurred him just a little bitter, tapped him on
Speaker 1: the butt with the range or whatever. He went right across,
Speaker 1: But she didn't. She she'd encourage him right up to
Speaker 1: the point he got there, and then she'd take all
Speaker 1: the pressure of So he just turned around and walking.
Speaker 1: He wasn't trying to run away or anything. She'd get
Speaker 1: him back over there, and finally she got off and
Speaker 1: led him across the water. Of course, got her boots
Speaker 1: at bubber boots. You know. Well she got him across
Speaker 1: the water all right, But it wasn't anyway. The horse
Speaker 1: one she didn't teach you. Yeah, So like with going
Speaker 1: back to the looks of a mule. Okay, so you
Speaker 1: said because mule people are the certain the way they are,
Speaker 1: which I want to get back to because I've heard
Speaker 1: other people say that, um, and I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out why I like mules, So this may tell me
Speaker 1: something about myself that I don't know and why Colby
Speaker 1: likes mules. But you, uh, now I know Kobe's a rebel,
Speaker 1: so we already know that. Yeah, you missed it, he said.
Speaker 1: He said that mule people are usually rebels at heart, okay, renegades. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they gotta have it in them too, Uh, they gotta
Speaker 1: have it in them to be able to deal with
Speaker 1: deal with their animals. So what characteristics are you looking
Speaker 1: for them? I mean, like like with height, or with
Speaker 1: build or with I mean like, can you describe the
Speaker 1: perfect mule for you, even just for you? What's a
Speaker 1: What's a perfect mule in terms of height? Color? I
Speaker 1: like for my prayer self, for personally, I like a
Speaker 1: fourteen two animal fourteen to that rides fourteen to how
Speaker 1: many inches is that? That's fifty inches fifty eight inches
Speaker 1: to the withers, which is where the hair of the
Speaker 1: main meets the back basically is the highest point of
Speaker 1: the Withers scapula, the highest point of it measure from
Speaker 1: the ground. But some animals ride bigger than others. You've
Speaker 1: wrote a lot of fifty four or fifty meals, and
Speaker 1: road just bigguse of fifty eight, I see, And it
Speaker 1: may be a little hard to explain. But the more
Speaker 1: hard to go that just road bigger. Yeah, and I've
Speaker 1: had some fifteen fifteen two meals bigger. Generally, the bigger
Speaker 1: to get to the laser they get. The harder is
Speaker 1: for him to move and to get more drafty, if
Speaker 1: you will. Yes, the more always like a little refinement,
Speaker 1: little smoothness to my mules and bary you get them.
Speaker 1: The harder this to get that. And it's the shame
Speaker 1: that in the last ten years, more and more of
Speaker 1: the donkey breeders or breathing for size, you know, not
Speaker 1: how it looks. It's he is the fifteen hands tallers,
Speaker 1: he's sixteen hand tallers, he's seventeen hands tall. And the
Speaker 1: donkeys I'm talking about, well, if you breath to one
Speaker 1: of those, ma'am with Jack's, you're gonna get a colt
Speaker 1: to resemble some It's gonna get the big mule that's
Speaker 1: on the average is lazy, uncoordinated and looks like if
Speaker 1: you put together by a committee. And so you know
Speaker 1: you just not my type of mule. But do you
Speaker 1: need to take them linked to an actor? What I
Speaker 1: sit on the mule, the type of ear they have,
Speaker 1: how much withers they have or don't have, probably sending
Speaker 1: five percent of your mules are like a donkey. They're
Speaker 1: straight back. Yeah, so when the straight is a string,
Speaker 1: but they don't have any shoulder muscle to hold your saddleback. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I like the meal with a little shoulder to him. Okay.
Speaker 1: And then if you you get what's your legs should
Speaker 1: all four squared up with your legs in front front legs.
Speaker 1: You're usually pretty square on the meal, but the back
Speaker 1: winds are not take the hip structure of a donkey.
Speaker 1: It's back. When they stand it what they call it
Speaker 1: camp out and rear understand with their feetback okay, like
Speaker 1: out wide, well generally wider than the normal stands. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll not there propping up yourself so they don't fall down.
Speaker 1: I see. Then someone passes on to the mule. If
Speaker 1: you ever recognize what it is you what's your door
Speaker 1: home life? Take his straight or forward? Ten mules running
Speaker 1: around the pasture. You could really tell it then because
Speaker 1: there's arch legs are back and they can get collected, okay,
Speaker 1: like a horse. So they don't it's running like a donkey.
Speaker 1: They're a little short gat to have. You know when
Speaker 1: they're running a donkey. They're camped out in the rear
Speaker 1: most of them. And they don't take longer strides. Okay,
Speaker 1: take a reining horse or cutting horse, uh, barrel horse,
Speaker 1: anything extra speed in the movements. They had to be
Speaker 1: collected to do it properly. Take a change the leads.
Speaker 1: You're galloping me around the read and you take it
Speaker 1: across the vile and ask them to change leads. He's
Speaker 1: got to get collected to do that. And if he's
Speaker 1: camped out in the rear end, it's almost impossible. I see.
Speaker 1: They got to drop down to trot one trot, change
Speaker 1: leads and go back into a canter. So they need
Speaker 1: that wide stamps to be able to do that or that,
Speaker 1: or well not so much wide stands. That's just that's
Speaker 1: just it's standing. They need your hips, whole hip structure
Speaker 1: to turn like this so they can get the rear
Speaker 1: feet up undram They might gallop. A meal might overstride
Speaker 1: say two ft, whereas the horse was tried and maybe ten.
Speaker 1: So they've gotta be just the structure limits and a
Speaker 1: lot of decent movements. You're just trail righting the average meal.
Speaker 1: You don't don't notice a meal. They don't affect your
Speaker 1: trail riding that you know of that you can tell.
Speaker 1: But if you go try and do something with him
Speaker 1: and understand what makes you move this way or trying
Speaker 1: to make a move that way, and ever ever hand
Speaker 1: while we roach been right or left handed, so we've
Speaker 1: got to learn which one is your favorite leg and
Speaker 1: right how to make them work on the other one
Speaker 1: in general, if you were if we're again going back
Speaker 1: to this question of mules and horses, like a tell
Speaker 1: me if this is right, this is the way that
Speaker 1: I've described it in the past, isn't is a horse
Speaker 1: is probably gonna be maybe faster and maybe a little
Speaker 1: bit smoother ride than a mule, but a mule is
Speaker 1: going to be safer, more sure footed, and do better
Speaker 1: in rougher country. Is that a fair assessment? Accepting that
Speaker 1: you told me it's gonna be a better ride. Or
Speaker 1: disagree with that? Okay, because you take if you watch you,
Speaker 1: if you watch a horse walk, they do right front
Speaker 1: and left career on the ground to walk. Then you
Speaker 1: do the left front, right rear. Well, it's the same
Speaker 1: link to stride on each movement to each cycle. But
Speaker 1: a mule would have a little more paces. There's the
Speaker 1: ways feet go. Just moves a little bit different. It's
Speaker 1: not much, but it doesn't take much to make a
Speaker 1: difference in the ride. Gives you a lot better ride
Speaker 1: than a horse. Oh really, So you think a mule
Speaker 1: can have a smoother just walking ride than a horse
Speaker 1: hole nearly every time? Really? Okay? Okay, huh. And then
Speaker 1: you gotta watch on you when you're breathing. M says,
Speaker 1: if you're picking the brewd mirror, you're going one with
Speaker 1: a long slope to the shoulder because the donkey is
Speaker 1: a steep shoulder and they don't extend. They can't extend,
Speaker 1: I say, but it's in its on. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: it's that are the donkey's gate, not these big big
Speaker 1: checks and stuff, but an averageized fifty four in to
Speaker 1: donkey the gate that to him is really more favorable
Speaker 1: to packing the donkey is you have, then you move
Speaker 1: up to a mule and they're more donky is better
Speaker 1: than the mule, and mules better than the horse. And
Speaker 1: because it's a movement, it's so smoother it doun't ruffle back. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: And that's that's great info right there. So because of
Speaker 1: the structural and straightness of their back there well, and
Speaker 1: there their stripe, that's what you're saying. At the movement,
Speaker 1: their movement there. That's why they're great pack animals because
Speaker 1: it's not jostling the pack. That's part of it. The
Speaker 1: other reason they meant good pack animals just their natural
Speaker 1: born followers. Okay, if you're on a geriality, go to
Speaker 1: patential people, go to leave. They don't want to be
Speaker 1: first to follow you anywhere, but they takes a little
Speaker 1: better trained, a little more independent builder. I want to
Speaker 1: be out in the front. Okay, that even more than
Speaker 1: a horse. Really, why do you think that is? Because
Speaker 1: they're half donkey and a donkey just a born follower. Okay,
Speaker 1: you can watch you and I used to have twenty
Speaker 1: gennies out there in that pasture one pasture and had
Speaker 1: a water nice water through their forum, and they'd have
Speaker 1: had three dust rolls bowls if it's not a hole
Speaker 1: in the ground where they can go down and roll
Speaker 1: or make one and then you can see him. That
Speaker 1: was your pa had a pattern every day they go
Speaker 1: to one dust bowl rolling and they grazed, and then
Speaker 1: in single file to go to the new water trough,
Speaker 1: and in single file they go to the next dust bowl.
Speaker 1: They didn't know horses nottense to do that. They get around,
Speaker 1: maybe some of them kicks up, runs around. Donkeys are
Speaker 1: just leve together. So that's why they make good trail
Speaker 1: animals for packing gear, you know. That's that's one of
Speaker 1: the major points. Of course, you gotta live with the
Speaker 1: straight backness, and sometimes it's harder to good to pack
Speaker 1: to hold on there. Okay, so the straight backness doesn't
Speaker 1: help the pack hold on. It's just the way the
Speaker 1: animal moves. Well, that's turnt intertinct to follow. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know she everybody a lot of people who don't
Speaker 1: know things hanging up here. She got riding his horse.
Speaker 1: Bring the back we all string and they don't you
Speaker 1: have them time to get it. They're just doing their
Speaker 1: own you know. Yeah, yeah, they're jump in and following.
Speaker 1: They don't pass, they just follow. H m hmm. Interesting.
Speaker 1: So so you had all these jacks, all these mayors,
Speaker 1: who was who was What kind of people buy high
Speaker 1: dollar mule? Is that if question? I mean you were
Speaker 1: selling mules all over the country, Is that right? Yes?
Speaker 1: I never really thought about it. Why the type of person? One?
Speaker 1: One type of person? I mean, are they mule people
Speaker 1: or are they horse people that want just like this
Speaker 1: one really nice animal that they're willing to pay a
Speaker 1: lot for or is it? Uh? I mean, like are
Speaker 1: most people Do most people that have mules that's all
Speaker 1: they have? Or is it? Or do a lot of
Speaker 1: horse people probably have maybe one mule for whatever reason.
Speaker 1: I mean, I was just trying to get a feel
Speaker 1: for because you sold some high dollar mules over the years,
Speaker 1: I mean you're making a living selling. Yeah, I was
Speaker 1: not compared to today's market, but I sold a lot
Speaker 1: of high dollar mules. But I guess two or three
Speaker 1: different types of person people. One would be that person
Speaker 1: who wants to have something different, show off, you know,
Speaker 1: because don't want it just to be different. It's going
Speaker 1: to want to be well trained too. And then and
Speaker 1: you see lots of across the country. You have a
Speaker 1: group competitors or riders like ropers, say Steer Ropers. You're
Speaker 1: going maybe there'll be twenty teams of horses, and then
Speaker 1: to be a couple of years come out there and run,
Speaker 1: you know, and you guys maybe got three horses he's
Speaker 1: ride when he also rides a mule and just something different.
Speaker 1: And then some of them want to have the very best.
Speaker 1: And I had more than one person called me and
Speaker 1: say what I want to buy the best mule in
Speaker 1: the United States. Mhm, myney is no object. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: But then at the same time maybe sounds like Kobe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's all right, Kobe, lets them up. It's that guy.
Speaker 1: Had a guy from Idaho come one time and bought
Speaker 1: a trailer over tosson. Then he came bout three meals
Speaker 1: from me, tacked up backpack tack and you sold him
Speaker 1: everything everything. He means, you don't have a brush. But
Speaker 1: he was. He was a guy maybe thirty years old
Speaker 1: and an avid big game hunter. Lived to night who
Speaker 1: in in the year before he killed all five big
Speaker 1: game animals, including the mountain goat in Idaho. And he
Speaker 1: was back. He wasn't put your size guy, and he
Speaker 1: lost seventeen pounds while he was hunting that goat because
Speaker 1: you don't to pack in what you could pack on
Speaker 1: your back. Well said, put that away. But that's why
Speaker 1: he did it. And after that he said, I gotta
Speaker 1: have me a mule. So he came in. The drove
Speaker 1: all the way down here from Ottaho, and I had
Speaker 1: about seven eight meals called. I thought it would work
Speaker 1: for him, and I had him don tied round the fence.
Speaker 1: So I went down and told him about everyone, one
Speaker 1: of them, each, everyone of them, and he walked back
Speaker 1: a couple of times he said I take this one,
Speaker 1: this one, that one, and all the tapers slowed him up,
Speaker 1: and I said, well, we better ride him. You pulled
Speaker 1: out the cash register changing changing Well, he said, I
Speaker 1: said we better go ride and check him out. You
Speaker 1: might decide you don't like. He didn't even want to
Speaker 1: write him. No, he said, why should I want to
Speaker 1: write him? Lord, you told me what kind of music
Speaker 1: were and I believe you. He trusted you, and so
Speaker 1: he said, I don't need to ride him. Well, it
Speaker 1: wasn't mules. I was worried about. It was him because
Speaker 1: when I asked him how much writing experience he'd had,
Speaker 1: and he told me that he thought he could remember
Speaker 1: riding a pony ride in the circus one time when
Speaker 1: his mother took him to the circus. I mean nothing.
Speaker 1: So I talked to me. I said, well, look at
Speaker 1: three o'clock in the afternoon, why don't you you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to stay overnight anyway, why don't you s we
Speaker 1: go tott trail ride on the mountain tomorrow and just
Speaker 1: for time shake. You know, well, okay, so at the
Speaker 1: time we got top of the mountain, you're smart enough
Speaker 1: to realize that he needed some resistance. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it did not come with an owner's manual. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: When he was that type of guy, you know, he's like,
Speaker 1: I just whatever it is, I just get the owners
Speaker 1: manual and built in figured out. Yeah. I said, you
Speaker 1: can't do that with mucles. You know, when I first
Speaker 1: got mules, I wasn't quite like that, but I quickly
Speaker 1: realized that buying a animal, especially if you're working in
Speaker 1: these lower end mule markets where you don't know what
Speaker 1: you're getting, it's not like buying a four wheeler. You
Speaker 1: don't you don't just go, okay, a broke mule. You know,
Speaker 1: get on Craig's List and see broke mule for sale
Speaker 1: twelve hundred dollars. You think you're just gonna get on
Speaker 1: that animal and just have no trouble and ride all
Speaker 1: over the country. That is not the case. And I
Speaker 1: think that's probably the biggest thing that people that I
Speaker 1: hear people that have questions with is they don't understand
Speaker 1: that transition from zero two functional and uh, you know
Speaker 1: inside of being able to ride a mule, Because even
Speaker 1: if you have a really well trained mule, he'll take
Speaker 1: advantage of an inexperienced writer, will he not? A lot
Speaker 1: of times you will. Let's pull pull that down just
Speaker 1: a little bit more. The there you go, there you
Speaker 1: go perfect a lot of times. Shut this case. But
Speaker 1: the more you learn about the more when you learn
Speaker 1: about meals, what makes them, tecking, how to train them,
Speaker 1: and property, equipment and stuff. But more you realize how
Speaker 1: little people know about what what you're doing. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: if you have any question about their being a higher being,
Speaker 1: you can just watch the many screen horns tried and
Speaker 1: they don't get killed, you know, because somebody's gonna be
Speaker 1: looking after that dude. She could have had ten of
Speaker 1: those one day, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: So what what's uh, what's the high end mule in
Speaker 1: today's market? Like what what would? Well, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: several mules due to Jake Clark soay mainly, but they're
Speaker 1: selling a lot of both public and private for ten
Speaker 1: tod Yeah, it's not uncommon anymore today. I mean, I
Speaker 1: remember the one one when I sold for twenty five grand.
Speaker 1: She was way four above it. And this number two
Speaker 1: you might have been ten thousand dollar mule, you know,
Speaker 1: but it's not that way. And another reason they're getting
Speaker 1: higher priced mules, it's because the people are breeding better mules,
Speaker 1: but not only better looking, with better capabilities to do
Speaker 1: some performance. And then the other thing is to get
Speaker 1: the trainers are more watching the clinicians, you know, and
Speaker 1: learning to what the horse people been doing for years
Speaker 1: and how to apply to their mules and and so
Speaker 1: mule trainers are getting better, yes, more, I mean, and
Speaker 1: they're educating the average rider. A lot of more and
Speaker 1: more riders, trail riders so speak, are going to these
Speaker 1: clinics and learning, hopefully one on one world what to do.
Speaker 1: It's still a long ways from being accomplished writer just
Speaker 1: in one session or two. I went went of mine
Speaker 1: back in the day when John Lynes was the main
Speaker 1: the horse whisper around. He had a five day clinic
Speaker 1: over to Homer and my friend to a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: wanted me to go over there and watch him. And
Speaker 1: after five days he was a friend was amazed. He
Speaker 1: told me back to back up a little bit. He
Speaker 1: told me about six months before that that he wanted
Speaker 1: me to help him become a better mule rider because
Speaker 1: he had TRAI rized all the times, said, I won't
Speaker 1: mind me able to do better than average trail rider.
Speaker 1: So I worked with it with a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 1: And one thing I worked with him on I was
Speaker 1: getting his meal to do a turnaround, and he he
Speaker 1: pop picked up on him pretty quick. One reason because
Speaker 1: his meal was handy and he realized it to which
Speaker 1: I saw right away. But he realized that after the
Speaker 1: third days, what he's taken three days to teach those
Speaker 1: people to turn around, and you taught me in fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1: I said to well, he's making money at it's how
Speaker 1: he makes she's living. He's gotta milk this out. He
Speaker 1: can't give all the good stuff away the first day exactly.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what you mean by turnaround, I mean
Speaker 1: just being in the middle of a trail and get
Speaker 1: him to spend three or sixty degrees. Well, see there again,
Speaker 1: you're relating it to trail ride you and it's not
Speaker 1: as important most of the time. But you don't want
Speaker 1: them to just walk around in the circle. You wanted
Speaker 1: to cross a cross over and flash the trail rod
Speaker 1: got a tight situation. You want to cross over and
Speaker 1: cross over on their back legs, not rear up. But
Speaker 1: just takes a lot less time if you go to
Speaker 1: circle like thet to roll back. Okay, And I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to bring my meal over here because you're talking
Speaker 1: about a lot of stuff I don't I don't know of.
Speaker 1: I just know how to get on one and make
Speaker 1: it go wherever you needed to go. We do that
Speaker 1: and not fall off. I've got to meeting out here
Speaker 1: now that's not finished. What she knows enough, I can
Speaker 1: show you what they're supposed to do. Yeah, mm hmm.
Speaker 1: What would you uh what what advice would you give
Speaker 1: somebody that was wanting to buy mule that didn't know
Speaker 1: econ animals much? What advice would you give him first,
Speaker 1: Try to find somebody that's reputable it be is honest.
Speaker 1: The thing I found through the years is not so
Speaker 1: much what people tell you that they're people that are
Speaker 1: selling mules. Is not so much what they tell you,
Speaker 1: it's what they don't tell you. I's try to get
Speaker 1: you hurt and in my way thinking that's the same
Speaker 1: as a line. Yes, I know exactly what you mean.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you come with me and say I
Speaker 1: want to buy this mule, and you've got some questions
Speaker 1: as he kicked or does he do this or does
Speaker 1: he said he says no, no one saw you get
Speaker 1: him home. He does something difference. You know. So you
Speaker 1: called a guy back and said, well, you here told
Speaker 1: me that he would run over you. Well you didn't
Speaker 1: ever ask me. Yes, that's no excuse, that just cop
Speaker 1: out and just playing a liar. Yeah, you know that.
Speaker 1: You described that so well, and I'm glad to hear
Speaker 1: you describe it that way, because I said the other
Speaker 1: day that I didn't it being a mule guy, a
Speaker 1: mule salesman, it'd be hard to be successful and be
Speaker 1: completely honest because almost everyone is going to have some quirk.
Speaker 1: Every every animal that I've ever bought, like right now,
Speaker 1: my mule that I love so much, she's I guess
Speaker 1: she's coming on five. And I mean you couldn't pay
Speaker 1: me enough money to sell her if I was trying
Speaker 1: to sell her though for a high dollar. I mean
Speaker 1: she you know, fidgets when you're putting a sideline her.
Speaker 1: She uh, you know, she's got quirks, um and and
Speaker 1: so like, but probably somebody. But she's never bucked me off.
Speaker 1: She's never she's never kicked, she's never done anything real crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, I could make you, I can show you pictures,
Speaker 1: I could tell you the truth. But then when you
Speaker 1: got on or you'd be like, man, this this meal
Speaker 1: is kind of fidgety when it's nervous and kind of
Speaker 1: cold backed a little bit, you know a few little things.
Speaker 1: Um well, a lot of everybody has a different writing ability. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's one thing has helped me through the years. It's
Speaker 1: to figure out how, how, what kind of what level
Speaker 1: these people are on and matching with the mule that's
Speaker 1: you could handle that. Yeah, and some of them care
Speaker 1: there are better writers and they think they are. And
Speaker 1: some of them are scared to death, you know. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: But and some of them realized that a lot of
Speaker 1: guys and that goes kind of along with the being
Speaker 1: independent and more over redl with music. A lot the
Speaker 1: guys should do the one taking any training, you know,
Speaker 1: because they're bearished it. But they might not have no
Speaker 1: money for wife does it. But they let their wife
Speaker 1: go to training, but they don't want to go. Couldn't
Speaker 1: be that hard, you know. Yeah. But I had a
Speaker 1: couple comes from which to Falls, Texas. They bought two
Speaker 1: meals from in. The woman was about fifty five years old.
Speaker 1: She's what I wrote some when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: but I haven't written in twenty years. And my husband's
Speaker 1: been paying for me to writing lessons. But they're English lessons.
Speaker 1: Mhm and uh. She said, I need some Western writing lessons.
Speaker 1: So we were turned around here and I started to
Speaker 1: coaching her. Her husband was telling her to do this
Speaker 1: net and I said, wait a minute, Bill, you want
Speaker 1: to be one teacher if you want to. If you
Speaker 1: won't tell her what to do, I'll go to the house.
Speaker 1: If you want me to tell her what to do,
Speaker 1: then you need to shut up or you go to house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is is this part of the world kind of the
Speaker 1: mule epicenter of the country. Yes, okay, because I've been
Speaker 1: saying that for years. I'm glad that you verified that
Speaker 1: for me. Not quite as much as it used to be,
Speaker 1: but still it is. For sure, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas
Speaker 1: particularly hot spot from mules. But then you see a
Speaker 1: lot of mules just numbers misshipping out of Baba and
Speaker 1: Georgia don't have a lot of mules, but not necessarily
Speaker 1: high quality, high trained mules. Really so so out West,
Speaker 1: a lot of these outfitters and different groups have mules.
Speaker 1: They're buying those mules from here a lot of times,
Speaker 1: is that right? Yeah? So I know there's a there's
Speaker 1: one guy that I know of here in Arkansas that
Speaker 1: trains mules all year long and then takes them out
Speaker 1: to these uh live auctions out in Idaho, and it
Speaker 1: gets pretty high dollar uh for his mules out there
Speaker 1: in the live auctions. Is that kind of because that's
Speaker 1: what I've seen, is that a lot of those Western
Speaker 1: guys are coming back here to buy mules. The oz
Speaker 1: arcs and and well not just the old arcs but
Speaker 1: states you said first, and I don't want necessarily want
Speaker 1: to plug Jack Clark, but he see he was so
Speaker 1: smarter than the rest of us, Not that I wanted
Speaker 1: to do it, but he'd been in buying selling mules
Speaker 1: to all his life and he's a guy that's my age,
Speaker 1: and he figured out, hey, if we just do better
Speaker 1: a quality mules, people people figured out and come by,
Speaker 1: especially in the West. And so he only his mules
Speaker 1: have to be vetted before they can be sold at
Speaker 1: his well. Not only have they first have to pass
Speaker 1: the phishical inspection to be a nice looking mule, and
Speaker 1: then they have to have certain qualities, and he sets
Speaker 1: up obstacle course if you will. Yeah, he's placing they
Speaker 1: have to go through all of that before they can
Speaker 1: qualify to go to the sale. And it'll be everything
Speaker 1: you can can think of, all the stuff he has
Speaker 1: it for him to do. In other words, one one,
Speaker 1: if they can go to his trail course, they've got
Speaker 1: to be pretty well broke. Yeah, it could an average
Speaker 1: mule that I'd be riding make it through that trail
Speaker 1: course with proper training. But the first place people people
Speaker 1: are going to pay that a lot of money, a
Speaker 1: lot of money like that for they don't want to
Speaker 1: train them and they don't know how, and they don't
Speaker 1: want to. They want to step on him and do
Speaker 1: what they're supposed to, not realizing that I have people
Speaker 1: all of times to say, well you're a trainer, No
Speaker 1: I'm not, I'm a rider. Any time you touch your animal,
Speaker 1: you're training it your trainer or whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not good or bad. Yes, yeah. And I told
Speaker 1: her fancy meal to a banker one time for a
Speaker 1: lot of money, and she's called me back in about
Speaker 1: two weeks and he said, but I need to bring
Speaker 1: that meal back over there. I can't get on her.
Speaker 1: M I thought, well, okay. We brought her over and
Speaker 1: she fished it a little bit when I when I
Speaker 1: got on her, but she stood fine. And he said,
Speaker 1: she's starting to get away from me. When when I
Speaker 1: was getting the saddle, I said, we don't have to progress,
Speaker 1: bring her right over. So I wrote her a week
Speaker 1: and I said, come get your meals. Nothing wrong with her.
Speaker 1: We come got her and to weeks to call me
Speaker 1: back the same thing. They brought her back over and
Speaker 1: I said, okay, I want to I'm gonna fix her
Speaker 1: this time. But before you can take her, you're gonna
Speaker 1: have to show me how you get on the rider.
Speaker 1: Something you're doing. It's not the meal. So what he
Speaker 1: was done, it's getting on me all purpen Dickler and
Speaker 1: he he had sharp pointedge, told your boots, he got
Speaker 1: your right in m m yeah, in the side there
Speaker 1: with that booting press. Soon she thought there was a
Speaker 1: clue to move away. Yeah yeah, yeah, And so I
Speaker 1: saw him turn turns out but sideways. I didn't get
Speaker 1: up when your animal, so you're not poking her? Yeah,
Speaker 1: and she did fine, yeah yeah, but he was training her,
Speaker 1: see yeah, he was training her to do that. Yeah. Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: what's uh? What would you say to me? It seems
Speaker 1: like there's two kind of mule markets in a way,
Speaker 1: like I guess, I guess a vetted mule sale. They're
Speaker 1: gonna get more money for that mule because it's coming
Speaker 1: from reputable trainers and it's been vetted in some way,
Speaker 1: like the Jake Clark stuff, because is it you know,
Speaker 1: you can go on because you can buy cheap mules anywhere,
Speaker 1: but they're just not not they've not been proven, I guess,
Speaker 1: and you've gotta weed through, like I'm trying to understand,
Speaker 1: like somebody paying five grand for a mule, you know,
Speaker 1: like they're I mean, I know why they I mean,
Speaker 1: I know people with money would do that, but like, um,
Speaker 1: it seems like some of these trainers are buying cheap
Speaker 1: mules and just sell them in a different market and
Speaker 1: making money. Does that make sense or is that has
Speaker 1: that happen? Well, I said, I don't what you're talking to, kidneyp.
Speaker 1: But a good trainer can take a mule it's got
Speaker 1: a problem and maybe fix it. You know, yeah, where
Speaker 1: every person couldn't do it. Don't have to knowledge or
Speaker 1: abilty to do it. Maybe has a builty, but not
Speaker 1: to knowledge. And um, but you take a mule, you
Speaker 1: guys put nine year, hundred days on and knows what
Speaker 1: he's doing. Maybe paid Mandy Paint the five thousands for
Speaker 1: me don't start with, but to have me gets it
Speaker 1: up to the level of fifteen thousands somewhere training. He's
Speaker 1: put lots of time, expertise, quality time with that animal.
Speaker 1: The only problem with find those type of mules is
Speaker 1: that a lot of times that there are sometimes it
Speaker 1: doesn't stay when they get them home because this dude
Speaker 1: has been riding a meal every day that he can
Speaker 1: for several hours. The more you use them, the better
Speaker 1: to get you know. Yeah, Well, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many muals I've brought home and he comes untrained a
Speaker 1: little more every day. Yeah, because I thought these trainers
Speaker 1: are original trainers will like cold ride one for somebody
Speaker 1: only write and write and write and write and writing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the day after you get it back from that,
Speaker 1: obviously it's gonna do pretty good. But four months down
Speaker 1: the road when you've written it three times, or maybe
Speaker 1: a week downe the road. Yeah, but a good example
Speaker 1: I had. I bought one from guy here in Arkansas
Speaker 1: at the time. Was his trade. Jo was trader and
Speaker 1: she was a fancy look at me. Well. I showed
Speaker 1: her to the world, showing Californ't she placed third the
Speaker 1: halter in her class. She was since she was fifty eight,
Speaker 1: and I bought her for myself. Had a good, good
Speaker 1: way of traveling, and I discovered her out there any
Speaker 1: want of five thousand dollars for so I bought her
Speaker 1: and asking about different questions, and I've known him, wasn't
Speaker 1: a stranger. But then I realized after I bought her,
Speaker 1: when she started giving me problems and I wasn't paying attention,
Speaker 1: but I saw that mute different times of the day
Speaker 1: there was. Of course, there's lots of lots of people
Speaker 1: out there. I was always on the track in New Venus.
Speaker 1: I saw her time after time. It was a different
Speaker 1: writer on her lopen lopen, hour after hour after hour.
Speaker 1: And so I got her home and it's real pleased
Speaker 1: with her. And I sat her up, rode her two
Speaker 1: miles down the road and back and everything's fine. And
Speaker 1: I did that for about a week, and about fift
Speaker 1: or six ride, I noticed she was kind of actually
Speaker 1: wanted to buck some you know, humped the pomy and
Speaker 1: stuck ears up, and I thought, this, a bitch could
Speaker 1: buck you all fun. She bucked me off if she
Speaker 1: could wanted to. But the next day I told him
Speaker 1: that I kept a big sixteen hand pony horse here,
Speaker 1: I said, down here, and taking me down the road,
Speaker 1: we got to the second curve down here, and she
Speaker 1: just exploded. And the first thing I knew, I was
Speaker 1: sitting behind the saddle, and so while she was coming down,
Speaker 1: I grabbed the horn and stuck myself back into saddle.
Speaker 1: But then I looked over and and even with the
Speaker 1: rubber on the horn, she's how powerful she was. That
Speaker 1: leader was around the point of horse saddle horn there
Speaker 1: and win. And so when she come down the next time,
Speaker 1: I stepped off of her. But she I couldn't, She
Speaker 1: couldn't reck her that. Why was she doing that? She
Speaker 1: was a bitch, she just had But she was a
Speaker 1: super well trained mule that people had ridden like just well,
Speaker 1: I was just every now and then she would just
Speaker 1: get that way. She was a mule. She was a
Speaker 1: young mual. She was just four or five year old.
Speaker 1: But she she I'd say, my opinion, she was that
Speaker 1: away from birth and not many of mar but she's
Speaker 1: one of them. Just her natural instinct. What's the buck?
Speaker 1: And Moy wrote her, unless she did it, you know, surely,
Speaker 1: and there he goes another point. One person can get
Speaker 1: along with mule and the next one can, or vice versa.
Speaker 1: Really there's some truth to that, huh. Meals are much
Speaker 1: more of a one on one type animal because you're donkeys, right,
Speaker 1: half donkey. But I sold that meal to the guy.
Speaker 1: A friend of miney Resourn, told him how exactly how
Speaker 1: she was, and he bought her. And but she bucked
Speaker 1: with him every time he got on. He made her
Speaker 1: open mut out of her. She bucked every time he'd
Speaker 1: get it on her five thousand dollar mule. But h
Speaker 1: but if she had been right, I could should her
Speaker 1: for ten you know, I see honestly, So that's a
Speaker 1: time when you got the where it didn't work out.
Speaker 1: I guess that's that's why you could do those You
Speaker 1: you could evaluate them pretty quickly. Write him, write something else,
Speaker 1: write him. Usually don't have but fifteen mint half hour.
Speaker 1: Once the one, I'll take the time to go on
Speaker 1: trail right withy one. Yeah, her bringing home and try
Speaker 1: it out. Yeah, but m interesting, m hmm. Cope, do
Speaker 1: you have any questions? You've been awfully quiet over there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm taking it all in. I want to hear. I
Speaker 1: was just thinking, if you have one mule that stands out,
Speaker 1: just some legendary mule that you've had that kind of
Speaker 1: out classes the others, like if you would describe them,
Speaker 1: or maybe a story about something that just showed how
Speaker 1: how good they were. Well, Clementine my Darlin was my
Speaker 1: all time favorite mual for looks and confirmation and ability.
Speaker 1: You have different favorite meals for different things, but overall,
Speaker 1: and if I just pick one and be her, she's
Speaker 1: a once in a lifetime mule, and she she was
Speaker 1: born and raised in California. And she was a nervous
Speaker 1: riding mule kind blucidic ahead only worse, and you you
Speaker 1: had to be a writer. She she never did buck
Speaker 1: very much when she's run off with you, spooker, and
Speaker 1: she didn't have much self persuation. One time this guy
Speaker 1: bought her from my saw. He was at a big
Speaker 1: meal show and had very big bleachers. Somebody come out
Speaker 1: a flag waving there. The next thing he knew he
Speaker 1: was standing up there on his meal, but he was
Speaker 1: about to top roll. Wow, and now this is the
Speaker 1: best meal you ever had? Though, Yes, and now tell
Speaker 1: explain that because I didn't make you're you're not very
Speaker 1: convincing here. It's like telling this kind of the day
Speaker 1: that it's like that never they never lose it. They're
Speaker 1: always going to be that way. But then you can
Speaker 1: work with him and make them better. Could She'll be
Speaker 1: a hell of a meal. And didn't have that problem,
Speaker 1: you know, Yeah, I mean you came, but you got
Speaker 1: to you got to understand the problem and figure out
Speaker 1: how to deal with it. That put me on. I
Speaker 1: didn't write her, but she was easy riding. But anyway,
Speaker 1: clear me was bought as a cold and raised and
Speaker 1: trained by this uh California guy, I guess, I say,
Speaker 1: And he did quite well with her, but he never
Speaker 1: could get that last little bit out ever, And I
Speaker 1: figured I could, and I did, but she got more
Speaker 1: broken and she mettled out, and I put a lot
Speaker 1: of time on her. She was finally got today to
Speaker 1: where she didn't regress, but uh she was. She was
Speaker 1: having on speed events, telling me that I wrote I
Speaker 1: wrote bunch of them that you could grass the rider
Speaker 1: into the arena, circle around in the says, you might say,
Speaker 1: cock the hammer wide open and just fog it into
Speaker 1: the barrel. Never slow down, just come out of there
Speaker 1: scratching and clawing and go to the next barrel. And
Speaker 1: that's what you gotta have you gonna win. You can't
Speaker 1: have one to start right, and yes, slowing down be
Speaker 1: fore they get there. Very much. So she was fast,
Speaker 1: that's what she liked about her. And she was very
Speaker 1: very athletic. But her I won six world championships with
Speaker 1: her M and now Halter championships are or Halter and
Speaker 1: she had dog Halter and and all the speed events.
Speaker 1: And then the guy bought her from wass A World
Speaker 1: Champion Team Open M hm and got working. Huh, that's
Speaker 1: the story. Now she would she had been a good
Speaker 1: trail meal just to go out here in the mountains
Speaker 1: and ride. Well, she was, she was very right. Ahoy.
Speaker 1: I wrote her a few times on her trail, but
Speaker 1: she wouldn't kind of a trail mule. But a cow
Speaker 1: working made me think, hey, we used to have a
Speaker 1: hundred head half hers here we kept and resold. I
Speaker 1: worked them all on the mules, and out of a
Speaker 1: time of having twenty thirt meals, i'd have five all
Speaker 1: the time. It could work cattle. Yeah, most mules that
Speaker 1: don't have enough speed to work a cow. They a
Speaker 1: lot of them have enough speed to just get up
Speaker 1: even with her if you got to trying to hit
Speaker 1: one out going down the fence, but enough speed to
Speaker 1: get from them and cut them off. Well, I had
Speaker 1: this one mules fourteen two maybe three hand bucks. She
Speaker 1: and Molly mule we call Ruth. She was about to
Speaker 1: have year old when I bought her, and the guys
Speaker 1: that I bought her from would work castle with her,
Speaker 1: and so I find tunder. But anyway, back to my story.
Speaker 1: They had at Carthage, Missouri. They had a a friend
Speaker 1: little competition and steer opening team pinning, and I found
Speaker 1: out about it and they had horses are showing and
Speaker 1: had the meal show. I took Root up there and
Speaker 1: the horse show was still going on. In the call
Speaker 1: for they're doing a team pinning, they call for single penning,
Speaker 1: and she was. She was best I've ever seen that
Speaker 1: that for me and so went up the owner. The
Speaker 1: guys put it on sponsoring. I said, can I write
Speaker 1: a meal in this class? He said, look, buddy, I
Speaker 1: don't care if you write a goat. But unlet's be
Speaker 1: understood that only one money. Everybody just want to take
Speaker 1: the whole part. So there was thirty six centered and
Speaker 1: I was the last one to enter. And if I
Speaker 1: don't know if if you're here with cattle pinning, seemed
Speaker 1: single penning, but you have all your steers out there,
Speaker 1: hefers was a cross the line. Then you have a
Speaker 1: pen setupool here m And if you've got three riders
Speaker 1: and you pick out, there's three steers out there with
Speaker 1: that same number, of course, short around, drying around, put
Speaker 1: them in the pin. A single pinning is the same thing,
Speaker 1: except they'll put one more panel over there. There's no
Speaker 1: way you can hit them off. We've got to be
Speaker 1: not only good, but you're gonna be fast, and then
Speaker 1: you've gotta be lucky, and lucky in the sense that
Speaker 1: your animals are used just quickly accessible. So I take
Speaker 1: off off the dead run and blew the whistle, and
Speaker 1: my steer, one of my steers was well, my ownest,
Speaker 1: her single opinion was right out in the front. Boy
Speaker 1: hooked around that dude and took him up to the
Speaker 1: arena or wide open and put him in there. In
Speaker 1: the pin six point seven seconds, I had tied the
Speaker 1: fastest horse. Mm hmm. So the crowd was a huge crowd.
Speaker 1: They were just loving it. They're all crapper and who
Speaker 1: and so the owners and the ancer said him't you
Speaker 1: want to flip for flip for the potter? You want
Speaker 1: to run it off for split it or what? I'll
Speaker 1: be damned defined you want to split anything with the mule?
Speaker 1: He cussing mules, and so he asked me, and I said,
Speaker 1: that's fine. We runned off. I want to take a home.
Speaker 1: So we got in there and I drew to go first,
Speaker 1: and the same thing, and down stairs, right in the front,
Speaker 1: took him up dead run. He got almost to the
Speaker 1: pen and he cut in front of me. I just
Speaker 1: cut the rather background and put him making anybody was
Speaker 1: thirteen seconds. Well, I'm thinking shoot at all that deal
Speaker 1: when he comes in there and he gets his right
Speaker 1: off the bat and said up there, and it turns
Speaker 1: almost in the same spot, but he didn't get around it,
Speaker 1: and he kind of got away from him for City
Speaker 1: Blue Whistle and he went past my time. Well, he
Speaker 1: was really mad about it. And so the stairs still
Speaker 1: out there, and he rode up the la stair and
Speaker 1: leaned over and great grabbed the stairs and twisted the
Speaker 1: steers tail and when he did, his saddle turned. Don't
Speaker 1: even dumped him running the dirt. Uh, godhead. It was
Speaker 1: one of the good mules one that day. And I heard,
Speaker 1: I heard, I heard for months after that somebody seen,
Speaker 1: somebody had seen. You want to say, hey, did you
Speaker 1: hear about that cat cat cattle penning up there at
Speaker 1: carth some mule one net like it was a Hollywood mule. Um,
Speaker 1: you you mentioned the mules age. What is uh, how
Speaker 1: long will the mule? Can you functionally ride a mule? Like?
Speaker 1: Will they last longer than a horse? Certainly? Well, A
Speaker 1: good example is that there's a paramutual racing excuse me
Speaker 1: for mules since six or eight or nine states eleven
Speaker 1: out west, and that's when I found out that the
Speaker 1: Para mutual race track they won't allow a horse to
Speaker 1: run past the age of ten. Well, when you run
Speaker 1: the mules Perer mutual, it's sixteen. Okay, So that gives
Speaker 1: you some idea about longevity. Useful longevity of the mule
Speaker 1: is longer, the much less longer. We didn't touch on it,
Speaker 1: but some more advantages to having a mule is that
Speaker 1: they don't eat as much. They're not as selective and
Speaker 1: want to eat. They'll eat about anything and do do
Speaker 1: well on it. Yeah, they'll do better flesh wise, with
Speaker 1: less food and poorer quality than the horse wheel donkey
Speaker 1: side again. Uh, and they're less, they're more, they're more
Speaker 1: disease resistance, they can standing more, riding injured in the
Speaker 1: horse will okay, just a lot of things like that.
Speaker 1: Don't think about could you ride up like Toby's got
Speaker 1: a Well, we both have a mule that's about fifteen.
Speaker 1: How how much longer will we be riding? Those meals
Speaker 1: seriously or easier to Okay, I got the meal out
Speaker 1: there now, that's modified eight years old really, and she's
Speaker 1: not like she used to be. But if you take
Speaker 1: care of she. One of the problems if any of
Speaker 1: those horses get solder, it's your teeth. And most people
Speaker 1: don't float their animal's teeth because they don't think he
Speaker 1: need you to. Never never heard of it, but that
Speaker 1: causes a lot of problems if they gets out of
Speaker 1: whack of tooth gets loose, or it gets a point
Speaker 1: on it where it makes a sore, and they don't
Speaker 1: you set trying to make them turn when you turn
Speaker 1: right what it punches them in chin. I don't want
Speaker 1: to do it. So it's advantageous to have you floated,
Speaker 1: especially after they started getting big eight or ten years old,
Speaker 1: and then when you get real old, if you haven't
Speaker 1: throated them on a regular basis before then they started
Speaker 1: getting a little loose and then they don't match up
Speaker 1: the uppers and lowers. HM. I bought it. I never
Speaker 1: didn't have a professional float your teeth all the time.
Speaker 1: But discovered this one viewers upper tooth that was literally
Speaker 1: an inch longer sticking down in his gun and wearing
Speaker 1: the side, causing pain when closing mouth or you put
Speaker 1: a put a bit pressure against it, so they to
Speaker 1: cut it off with bare nippers. Huh, floating wash'n't do
Speaker 1: any good? And now what is what is floating? Actually mean?
Speaker 1: They're pulling a tooth out? No photo, mr are you
Speaker 1: have a kind of a rasp so to speak, that's
Speaker 1: so big on the handle and you broke it up
Speaker 1: down on their teeth taking them even if they're chewing
Speaker 1: something and they can't, their teeth will come together just
Speaker 1: your your I have to say. Problem. Yeah, he started
Speaker 1: getting the horser because if you feed them in a
Speaker 1: box stall and pandhords are by therself and you got
Speaker 1: some h on them, you'll notice you notice you have
Speaker 1: some Hey the trought that he did, he's chewed, but
Speaker 1: he didn't swallow when he speak it back up. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good sign that their teeth work. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well hey there was that that. Everything you said iss
Speaker 1: been really good informative and uh yeah, Kobe, can you
Speaker 1: think of you got any final question? I mean there's
Speaker 1: a thousand as the other thing as I want to
Speaker 1: talk about, but we've we've covered the big things I
Speaker 1: wanted to hear about, you know, the mule business and
Speaker 1: what he what Mr Lloyd was doing all those years
Speaker 1: selling which we covered that we covered the you know,
Speaker 1: I learned some stuff about why you'd want to mule
Speaker 1: over a horse. Um. Another thing I would like to
Speaker 1: point out, uh, he said, most people, particularly women, do
Speaker 1: not want to be dominant over their animals. They just
Speaker 1: want to be equal. I see, and a lotch animals,
Speaker 1: not just mules. But do you have a pecking order.
Speaker 1: You cannot be equal. You've got to be above or
Speaker 1: below in the pecking order. Yeah. So that's one reason
Speaker 1: some people do or do not get along with their animals.
Speaker 1: Kind of goes back to the idea I said earlier
Speaker 1: where most people do a lot with their mules, but
Speaker 1: they've never made them do anything. Yeah. Yeah, well it's great. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for meeting with us today. I want
Speaker 1: to go out here and see some of your mules
Speaker 1: that you've got, and me and Colby want to come
Speaker 1: over here and ride with you. Yeah, thank you, Mr Lloyd.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate it. You're welcome any time, all right,
Speaker 1: Thank you. Well. We always in our podcast by saying
Speaker 1: keep the wild places wild. Professor with Barford