Mule Pull
Welcome to some Southern Culture! Friday night a few of us went to Adams, TN to visit the annual Thresherman’s Show. Specifically we were going to see the mule and draft horse pull that was taking place on Saturday night.
It was really hot and there wasn’t much shade, but they were just getting started when we arrived. I’ve never been to any kind of pull, tractor, mule or otherwise so I’ll describe in as much detail as I can remember. There were four classes of mules, lightweight, midweight, heavyweight and big. The horses were all in the same class. They started off with the lightweight mules, which weighed in at less than 1950lbs for the team (of two). I can’t remember what weight they started by pulling, but they ended at 4,900lbs! The light and mid weight teams get three chances to pull the weight the specified distance. For lightweights I think the distance was 10 feet and the midweight’s distance was 15 feet. The judge stands behind the sled and holds a pole in place and watches the dragging chain behind the sled until the yellow tape passes his pole at which time he blows the whistle to signal a successful pull. If forward motion stops at any point the whistle blows and it is considered a pull. For the light and mid weights like I said they get three tries, during which the judge never moves the pole so the distance is an aggregate distance, but for the heavier animals after a single pull, the pole is reset to the rear of the sled and the participant gets to keep the best of 3 pulls, not add them together. The mules and horses wore cleated shoes, with one cleat in the front center and it looked like just a long shoe in in the back that had the tips turned down to make two cleats in the back. It was dark by the time they got to the horses so I didn’t get any pictures ’cause I didn’t want to use the flash since all the animals seemed to be really high strung and easily spooked. The biggest horse team was incredibly huge! Their feet were about the size of a good sized pasta bowl and their rear ends were close to the top of my head. There was only one pair of big mules that was pulling with the horses and they stopped at 6,500lbs. They didn’t get eliminated and didn’t seem to be struggling all that much, but he didn’t have anyone to compete against, so he was just pulling to win his class. The horses continued and 2 teams went out on 8,000lbs, but the really huge pair pulled it with no problem and took first. Check out the flickr pics I took! Some would say it’s cruel to the animals, but I don’t think so, just a friendly competition with an beautiful display of animals working in tandem and with their handler to pull some impressive weight.