Buckeye the Mule!
A recent article at the Chronicle of the Horse had us excited to share the story of Buckeye, an 8 year-old Appaloosa mule who has been showing off the versatility of mules with his skills in the arena.
When Buckeye first came to owner Christina Gregory, he was a little green under the saddle after being mostly used as a driving mule for an Amish family. After some initial work with Christina, he began training with 22 year-old Samantha (Sammi) Majors.
Sammi began him with dressage and earlier in the year he was impressing judges and scoring consistently in the high 60 and low 70 percents in recognized shows. This fall she decided to add jumping in preparation for a show. “He loves jumping. For a long time we would work on dressage stuff and school him over cavalletti, and he always loved it. We’d be doing a 20-meter circle, and if we went anywhere near the cavalletti he would try to pull me to it,” said Majors. “As soon as we started jumping he took an immediate liking to it. That’s all he seems to want to do now is jump, jump, jump!”
He recently returned home from the North Carolina State Fair Mule and Donkey show with plenty of ribbons, winning Most Colorful Mule class, Hunter Hack class, Coon Jumping, Pleasure Driving-Single Mule, reserve champion Pleasure Driving, the Turnout Class and Reinsmanship.
Read the whole article here and visit Buckeye’s Facebook page.
Monique Tindall
August 14, 2018 @ 4:04 pm
Amazing! I have a mule that I have started on jumpers and have been told we can’t compete at some shows due to national rules by USJHA and USEF for Hunters. How did you find shows where Mules are allowed?
Meredith
August 31, 2018 @ 4:32 pm
I simply contacted local schooling shows and called ahead to ask permission to attend. I offered to stay in the parking lot with my mule to avoid scaring the horses until my class was called and even told them I did not need to be in the “Ribbons,” just “placed” to be able to assess my own performance and improvement. They seem to appreciate that a lot and most show organizers were happy to all ow me to compete.
Astrid Leyssens
July 30, 2020 @ 11:49 am
Hi, what an amazing creature. Love his looks and he also seems so sweet. Normally I don’t buy breyer models but his model I needed to get. Keep on jumping!