A Dressage Mule of a Different Colorfeatured

by sueweakley on May 3, 2017

Buckeye went down centerline with his floppy ears forward, a bright “spot” in a predominance of warmbloods.

When the scores were tallied at the Tryon Spring Dressage National Show in Tryon, North Carolina, Buckeye, the 2008 Leopard Appaloosa mule, and Samantha “Sammi” Majors notched a third-place finish in the Open First Level Test 3 with a 66.176 percent. They also earned qualifying scores for the USDF Region 3 Championships.

And, yes, sometimes Buckeye is a stubborn as. . .well, you know.

It all started as a love story with a spotty twist. David Majors went to a local trainer 25 years ago and asked her to start two 4- and 5-year-old mules, brothers who looked a lot like Buckeye and were only halter broke.

“I said, ‘I never mastered a mule, why don’t you bring me one and we’ll see how it goes,’” Jenny Majors said. “About a half a month later, David and I were dating.”

Jenny insisted on showing the mules.

“It turned out, those mules had some really cool talent,” she said.

Two years later, Sammi was born. Jenny and David, of Cleveland, North Carolina, own Full Stride Farm Sport Horses and Mules.

They bred and competed some mules but focused more on horses. They got out of the mule business for a while as Sammi’s interest waned.

Years later, after Sammi had graduated from North Carolina State with a major in Agricultural Business Management, they saw Buckeye advertised for sale at an auction. Sammi was hanging out her own shingle as a horse trainer, and the Majors’ client, Christina Gregory, bought the mule and asked for help. Buckeye was trained to drive but had little under saddle experience. A mule from the Ohio Amish country, Buckeye was truly a Sunday-go-to-meeting mule who took his family to church.

Now, Buckeye is a “jack” of all trades.

“He’s versatile,” Jenny said. “We’ve done the state fair and mule shows with him. He does driving, jumping, dressage, hunt seat, timed events and Western. He’s going to do some ranch horse and reining classes at the mule shows this year.”

In 2015, Jenny took four horses to NC State for their intercollegiate dressage show. At the end of each year, the members vote for Horse of the Year and Buckeye the Dressage mule won.

Now he’s a social media sensation with more than 13,000+ Facebook likes. (www.facebook.com/buckeyethedressagemule)

“We have Friesians and Warmbloods as well, but the mules are really fun to do on the side,” 23-year-old Sammi said. “It’s something different and he’s always a challenge. You have to make training completely his idea. You can’t drill the same exercise over and over and teach him something new. You have to come up with a bunch of different ways to practice the movements so he doesn’t get bored with it and just take over. So, you get lots of tools in your toolbox and you can translate that into the horses. “

They now have a young Appaloosa mule at home and and a couple in training.

“Sammi’s decided we’re going back into the mule breeding business so we’ll be breeding one or two mares for babies next year,” Jenny said.

And for Sammi and Buckeye? “I want to take him as far as he can go,” Sammi said, adding that she plans to move him up to Second Level next year. “I’d love to go to Kentucky for the Championships,” she said. “He’d be the third mule to go there.”

She’s also hoping to land a demonstration at the 2018 World Equestrian Games with Buckeye. “I just haven’t found the right people to get in touch with about it,” she said.

Meanwhile, she’ll keep training Buckeye while being mindful of his “mulishness.”