Robbins Farmer's Day Fair

Went the the Robbins Farm's Day Fair this Saturday. It was HOT! I met up with a lady, Anne and her mule Sister who just moved from CA. This was the molly's first parade. Sister got all crazy over some donkeys that where in the parade in front of us and did not even care about what was in the parade. So funny!
The mule was prancing and dancing and braying! I told her that she may not like how her mule was acting but that the Judges and crowd would. Guess what! Sister won the trophy for BEST MULE in the Parade!! We where so excited!

Along with several other CMA Members, Kenny Tyndall was there with all four of his mules hooked up! They looked good and did great for being a new four up team!
http://lasthillmulefarm.blogspot.com/

After Lunch we waited for the Army to do a 4 man parachute jump before we could begin the mule show. They land in the same field that we have the show in!
Seven got 2nd out of three in halter. (Can't beat Mable she is too prefect!)
Then we rode in Western Pleasure. Seven rode very well with no warm up and won the class, but there was only one other mule in the class. I was still pleased with how Seven rode and had several people tell me they where impressed with how broke he was.
(Oh yea, there was a Lumber Jack Competition going on 30 feet from the ring!)
When no one signed up for Coon Jumping Class Robbie asked me to go in since he knew Seven would at least jump a little. (I have not worked on Coon Jumping only Direct and Drive over some barrels and a few downed trees)
We got 4 others to enter and guess what? Seven WON! We jumped about 3 feet in four seconds and the only other mule to jump that high did it in a longer time. We got a 24" tall trophy.
Who would have ever guessed a Belgian Mule would win the Coon Jump?

For those of you who don't know what Coon Jumping is:
It is a high jump competition where the mule is led into a 10x10 box and then must stop and stand. Then the timer is started to see who jumps the fence the quickest. You get to knock the bar down at each height one time and then your out if you miss again. Usually smaller lighter mules do well at this event and can jump 72" or higher from a stand still! It is Jaw Dropping to see them do it! This started after people where using mules to coon hunt with.

Teaching a mule to want to jump over a little wood bar, sometimes high enough for them to walk under and easy for them to knock down, is like trying to teach a cat to shake hands on command!