Horses or Mules?

related to it. Your reliable trail partner was simply unobtrusive doing its job day in and day out giving weeks months and years of admirable service. Now theres a trail horse or mule you can respect and love.
Many land owners also like having a mule or a donkey around because of their extreme dislike for predators such as fox coyote cougar or bear.
With so many endearing qualities it is no wonder that many are mulestruck to the point where they actually believe a mule is attractive. Take a second look they are kind of cute with their teninch ears bucket head and all. And they can be exemplary trail partners. So why are they not more common on the trail? Well their popularity as trail mounts has been increasing for years and continues to grow but they still have a hill to climb. Some riders just cannot get past the way they look while others think of mules as third world beasts of burden. Combine this with the fact that a mule may not be the best choice for many performance disciplines and the mule is placed on something less than higher ground in the eyes of many.
The surefootedness of the mule is put to the test on the trails of the Grand Canyon a vast chasm of hoodoos and pillars muted distant with the haze of heat red and brown hues beyond and far below the muddy twine of the Colorado River and the faint green patch of the Ghost Ranch. You need the experience of walking down the trails of the Grand Canyon to truly appreciate the incredible reliability of the mule. I did and it was a terrifying experience to walk down on my own feet I could not have imagined riding a horse down. But surefooted mules carry riders along these splendid trails on a daily basis.
So what is my excuse? I have not excluded the mule deliberately. Where I come from a good trail mule is about twice the price of a good trail horse and harder to come by. We began raising and training our own line of Morgan Fjord draft cross horses years ago and are content with the decision but I can say with conviction that we would have no qualms about breeding mules. It was George Washington who imported the first mule to North America in 1785 and began the first
mule breeding program and if it was good enough for George Washington its good enough for me.
Notwithstanding there is something about the nobility of the horse and the heroic acts I have witnessed over the years when stuck in remote and difficult places where no man or beast should be in situations the wilderness sometimes throws at us. There is something about that heart spirit drive bravado and willing mind of a horse that pushes through over and beyond to another campfire and another day.