Cow working clinic with Muuli!

Pic is taken by Ansku Kauppinen https://www.facebook.com/ak.galleria.fi/

I joinec a cow working clinic on May at Hietaniemi ranch. This is the same farm where Muuli was in training for 6 minths during Janyary 2018 to June 2018 so Muuli knew the place already but she has been afraid of the cows back then so I didn't know how she would react on them!

Here in Finland horses are not used for cow work. They are used with cows mostly just for fun and education but in some places like Hietaniemi ranch it is possible to learn how to do it and use cattle to train horses. We also have one big competition weekend every year in cow work.

On the first evening on Friday we were just doing a little 1 hour long trail ride with Muuli and Sanna and her horse Dancer. On Saturday we first just rode on the arena without cattle. Muuli was very tense and she saw the cattle from the arena and refused to go in to that corner!

So I was pretty sure our weekend would consist just smelling the cows from the distance


But when we had cattle in the arena, Muuli acted like she had done cow work for all her life! She walked straight to the heifers (at the other side of the fence) so I walked her inside from the ground. First we followed them and I praised when Muuli wanted to get closer or sniffed their asses.
The trainer Sanna was giving us instructions all the time.

We had 3 short sessions, maybe 5 minutes long each, and after them I mounted and had another 3 short sessions mounted! And yes, Muuli felt really like she had done this for all her life!
I have only one experience of cow work before. I joined a cow clinic last year in this same ranch and I borrowed a very good cow horse. The course was held by Jeff Sanders and this August I'm joining at Jeff's clinic with my mule.

..I just can't believe how good my mule is! She has not been the easy one but boy she is one of the kind!

Here is the video from Saturday and this is the first session with the cattle.

And here is the video from Sunday, our second session with the cattle. Also the other rider in this clinic was able to ride her horse!