This text was originally posted on Mule Girls Facebook-goup.
I
might posted earlier that me and my mule were goinh to the largest
Horse Fair in Finland. The fair was 2 weeks ago and everything went so
well! I had my mule with me (the dark grown one in western saddle) and
my friend had her two mules, the smaller black one with socks and big
one out from percheron mare.
Mules were in their boxes during the
weekend ans so many came to see them and ask questions about them! I
was constantly speaking about mules and it was great!
We had a
small demonstration both days in the small arena. The arena is so small
and not that well made that riding was okay only in walk and when my
mule is not yeat that calm when I ride her in new places, I just walked
her. But we had a boy riding the percheron mule on Saturday.
We
were talking about mules, their feeding, keeping, riding, driving and so
on. Many thought that it is surprising that a mule mare can really
carry an embryo and give birth to a baby. Many had a thought that there
is no need to geld mule stallions. Off course we corrected this.
Here we call all the equines as mares/stallions/geldings. So we don't have different terms for jennet, jack, molly or john.
The black smallest mule has a traditional wooden collar on her. We use
that kind of collar to pull something more heavier than light sulky.
Pulling is more easy with the collar like that. That one is measure made
as they always are.
Percheron mule has a mule saddle imported from Brazil! The owner of these mules is re-selling them in Finland and in Europe.
And my mule has just a normal western saddle with a mule tree and very nice new bridle that I got just before the fair.
He is not an average boy, he is quite fampus in here. He started to
make own jewelry at the age of 10 and he is the youngest entrepreneur in
Finland! Or was, now he is 13. He made the jewelry to make money to buy
new horse for himself and he also bought it. He was competing in the
fair on Sunday with his horse and they came 2nd in show jumping!
I
have a blog in Finnish about my mule and I also post quite a lot in
Instagram so many people came there just to see my mule IRL. It was very
nice to meet readers and fans face to face. Many of them told that
"omg, she looks so small!" My mule is about 14,1 hands tall and I'm 16
but she looks a bit taller when she has tack on and I'm riding her.
We have only 26 mules in whole Finland (and 400 donkeys and 70 000
horses) and this was the first when this fair had mules. There was 17
000 visitors in the fair so it might sound quite small amount but here
in Finland it is great amount of visitors!
