Bear Grease - Ep. 318: Mule Revival - The Ada Oklahoma Mule Sale

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

In this episode of the Bear Grease podcast, host Clay Newcomb travels across the border to the 33rd annual Ada Oklahoma Mule Sale. Johnny Kelso and son Justin Kelso talk about their family history with mules, history with the sale, and what it means to be "mule folks." Mule buyer and seller Max Bishop describes what he looks for in a good mule as the mule sale moves along. We answer the question of what a mule is and how they compare to a horse. Listen closely for the auction of the High Selling Mule. If you have comments on the show, send us a note to [e-mail] Connect with Clay and MeatEater Clay on Instagram MeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and YouTube Clips MeatEater Podcast Network on YouTubeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Built to perform, built to last. Check out. First Light's new field. Worldware gear at firstlight.com. You take a leggy mule like that that will let down and walk, and the mirrors are rolling. They'll probably walk three and a half, four miles an hour. You cover a lot of ground like that.

And that's what I was saying earlier about a mule. Get a more general. Diversified. I mean, no, those horses are out there. I mean, don't get me wrong, they're out there. But I promise you, I promise you, we go to the mountains and go riding. A mule that will step out and walk.

You may keep up with me, but I'm going to kill your horse, and you're back. We're hurt when we're done. I mean, it's just a fact. Yeah. We're in Oklahoma at the 33rd annual Ada, Oklahoma mule sale to learn about mules,

the Kelso family who runs it, and to get some insight into rural America. This auction is a rare jewel in today's time, full of showmanship and tradition, and a heck of a place to pick up a good mule, and I really doubt that you're going to want to miss this one. And hey, if you enjoy episodes like this, please share our podcast on social media and leave us a review on iTunes. We truly appreciate all of you listening, and I think that we're about to learn some stuff.

It's hard to explain to your horse people. But if your horse people ever get bit by the bug and they get them a mule, then they can't explain it to their buddies either. It's just a mule thing. We've thought about getting some t-shirt sometimes. You know, it's just a mule thing. My name is Clay Newcomb, and this is the Bear Grease podcast, where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant. Search for insight in unlikely places,

and where we'll tell the story of Americans who live their lives close to the land. Presented by FHF Gear, American-made, purpose-built, hunting, and fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the land. the places we explore. So the kids around here, on Fridays, every Friday, they ride a Chick-fil-A. It's a big deal. They go through the drive-thru on their mules. They've been on Oklahoma City News with it.

It's been all over Facebook. It's fun. Nighttime comes around. They're allowed to go ride to town. I mean, we're on the edge of town. Right here in the edge town. Right here and age. They'll ride downtown.

Doing what kids do. I mean, having a big time, whatever. We didn't know this is going on. Our kids just got riding is all we know. And I'm wearing the office up the front of the river. And I see blue lights. I said, what's going on across the road over? Blue lights all over about the time my phone rings.

It's my son. I answer. He said, Dad, what's my social security number? I said, why? He's what the cops needed? I said, do what? I said, are you under arrest? This is kind of the way things roll when the mule cell is in town.

This is 51-year-old Justin Kelso. He's a seventh-generation mule man and his family, has been involved in the AIDA Oklahoma Meals sale since the first auction in 1992. Today they run the whole thing. But this story is about his son, Jack Kelso. Are you under arrest? He said, hey, am I in trouble? He said, no, I'm not trouble.

I said, are you under arrest? Or anything? No, no. I said, your mother will be over just a minute. Well, this is on Friday night. They were across the road here on Broadway, south of where we're at. and they'd rode downtown, but this young lady stuck her head out of this apartment complex.

It's y'all helped me, my man stole me out. And he had, he'd throwed her all her clothes out of the house and else. So they go over there. I don't know that the man he'd hit her. I'm not accusing him. I have no idea what he'd done.

So somehow or not, they're going to help. They go to her. They go to the front door. I mean, she's begging for help. So boys being good boys that may be little rambushes, but good boys, the lady needs help.

You'll help us. Well, raise my son. You take care of people. you know if you can. And so they get this guy off on porks and pretty good scuffle ensues. And the boy, my son was probably 15, 16 at the time. The other boy is 20, 21. And they get in a fight with this guy.

My son, I think he might have helped a little bit, but he gets it broke up because his buddy's popping on his guy pretty good. It's getting almost out of hand. So Jack gets him broke up. The guy goes back in the house and grabs a knife and comes back out after that boy. and Jack, by this time, he got back on his mule and he had a lert rope. He just freaks out ropes this boy

and drags him off by his feet. Thumped him down pretty good. And my wife, Candy, gets over there. And these cops are just in stitches laughing. They're saying, this greatest thing's ever happened in Oklahoma. I mean, we've never seen like that. So it turned out, he roped the guy and drink him down. I mean, I'm not the greatest roper in the world.

My son, he was five years old. He said, he teaches me out of rope. He said, I'd give him a little play rope. I was here. rope everything you see so the kids play with ropes since he's five years old and he can use one really well and he just reached out jerk this guy now it's wondering he'd hurt him jerked because he wrote him in the loop dropped around his legs I mean he took his feet up for my dad so did the guy get they raised trouble I think yeah far as I know I didn't ask I was just

glad my son went into a while you know that's all I needed was a court date at Oklahoma too much later welcome to Ada Oklahoma yeah boy the Ada Oklahoma the Ada Oklahoma mule cell is three days long and the main event is the mule auction on Saturday where they'll sell between 150 and 200 mules. A sorrel-colored mule, a red one, is being loped around the arena. It's a great, really, really. It'll be exactly the way to him.

Yeah. Most honest meal is at a road. He's as hard as you want all day long, multiple days in a road. He'll be just this friendly as he is when you get to. Just like that, each and every time you get you, I've had him over three years. The owner of the mule has stood up in the crowd to deliver a heartfelt sales pitch for this honest mule, and the rider chimes in, too.

The arena is surrounded by bleachers filled with potential buyers, tire kickers, and onlookers. Everyone is kind of here to see what the high-selling mule goes for. The mule sold for $15,000 to a little bit of $15,000 to a little. an online bidder from Idaho. Yeah, this place is pretty high-tech, but that wasn't the high-selling mule. The way this works is that one-by-one, each mule that's up for sale

is ridden through the arena while the auctioneer and the owner sing its praises. The rider has the crowd's attention for just a few minutes, and he's got to show the years of work that's gone into this animal. People in the crowd bid by raising their hand are yelling to the auctioneer.

But the thing about an auction is that this is a spectator sport. Will there be a lot of people here that are just spectators? Just come to watch. Come see the big deal. Yeah. You know, there's people here come here to vacation. They just want to see what the mules are bringing. Yeah.

Hey, do you hear what that mule brought out? Yeah, I was there. I've seen it. You know, coffee shop talk. It's like going to a ballgame in some ways. A lot of it would be a spectator. Yeah. And you'll see the tricks and the shows.

I mean, in a way, horse and mule sales are almost entertainers in a way to. Yeah. Showoffs. I mean, because you're showing their mule. That's the reason, mule and horses are sold, in my opinion, I've sold stuff all my life. I've sold equipment. I've sold cattle. I've sold.

Mules and horses are the most fun to sell because you can do the tricks. You can show off. There's some showmanship to sell in at a live auction. And there's disadvantage that showmanship. The reason my hip hurts, we was here 15 years ago. This mule would buck somebody off. I'd rode him with the house a little bit of road fine. More I rode this mule, bear you got to ride well.

I mean, he got to ride well. I mean, really was going to show good. And I think we had a lot, 1900 bid on his meal, which was more than we thought he'd bring. Because we weren't bragging on, you know, we didn't brag on how gently he was. I just showed him what he would do. Guaranteed him sound.

He didn't guarantee him to be gentle. Because we knew he butt somebody off. I'm not going to guarantee that when I know that. And Dad had his back turn trying to catch bid somewhere. I stood up my saddle. And I felt him bunch. I knew he was going, I didn't think he bucked. I thought he might kind of try to jump out from under me or something.

done it a thousand times just step off yeah it's a five-foot drop to step off he he was a turd he he knew he could take advantage me in that point because i have no control at that point i'm trusting you you've lost yeah but i mean i've been doing this kind of stuff since i was seven eight years old just jump off and when i did i had both feet in the seat of my saddle my spurs i had i used to had satabroft in high school and college when i stepped off my left foot leading i hung to my bright spur and fell off this thing like a sack of potatoes from a turnip truck and all my weight laying on my left hip. So he went out from under you and that spur caught. Yeah, when I would step me, I went and I lay on my hip and it hurt so bad I couldn't breathe. And my dad come over and said, what is wrong with them?

Because he didn't see it. He just turned around. I'm on the ground. Somebody else has caught my meal stepped on it. Finished right. By the way, we got no more bids on him. So anyway, dad's over to me. And I just hold my hand up like, oh, my dad. I'd maybe talk back to my dad twice in my life. I'm mortified him as a kid. I mean, it's dad, you know. And I just held my hand, I'm like, shut up. I can't talk. I'm not going to talk for a minute.

I finally, I said, what happened? I said, well, I stood up on him. And he said, on that son of a blank, he said, what were you thinking? I said, I said, my good idea at the time. So there's some showmanship in selling these meals. And that's what makes it fun to watch. Yeah, exactly. And which we get animated taking bids.

I mean, when I was younger, I can't. do it now, I'd be selling a meal and have a bid on each side of the auction ring. I'd rope from one side, jump off, catch a bid, jump back on and go get the guy back in the back-up bed on another side. And I know there were some people that done that just to see me do it. I mean, they thought it's funny, you know. And motions go running. Yes, you can get mules or horses sold as high or higher at home. There's certain scenarios. You've got that one customer that always comes to you or whatever. You can get, I'm not saying you get more at auction every time. However, every time somebody bids.

you're taking ownership of that animal or that car, whatever you're buying at auction. When you bid, you just took ownership. It may be for one second, maybe for 30 seconds, but it's yours at that moment. Well, if you want it bad enough, I don't think they've got to have my meal.

That's my meal. Why's he bidding against? I bet again. And so I think that's the reason auctions work well for a lot of things is, and I think sometimes you get more for one. And sometimes we've got, I mean, I've sold mules and horses that at auction,

I wouldn't ask you that much for it on. A live auction can be a seller's market, but the benefit to the buyer is how many meals they get to look at all in the same place. And what I've learned is that meal trainers, or the people selling these mules who come year after year, can get reputations, good and bad, and buyers tend to know what they're getting just because of whose mule it is. This can be good or bad. How many on average meals would you sell at the ATA meal sale? It's always average around $150 to 75% since we moved here probably. But this year you're going to have close to...

I'd say we'll have 200. We got nearly 100 in the catalog. So we usually get... And it varies. You just don't know. More people are putting our mules in a catalog. The catalog sale is where you can sign the mule. You pay a consignment fee.

You get the information and pictures, videos to us ahead of time. So it's a, you're coming to a sale. Consignment sale would be a better way for a lot of people to understand. But people know what they're getting that. That's right. A catalog meal is going to go through the trail course. Yep, go through a trail course. So at the cell, there's going to be two categories of meals.

There's the catalog meals, which are vetted in some degree. They've gone through a trail course. They, you know this meal's coming. But then there's also people that are just going to show up on Saturday. And they're going to say, I want this meal sold. Yep. Who is buying meals at this cell? Is it the individual guy that just is like, hey, I want to go buy a meal so that I can, you know, ride and trail ride and hunt?

Or is it mule buyers and mule traders? Is it people from all over the country? Is it regional? Like, who are these people? Yes, to all those. We got several individuals that, you know, they trail ride. Maybe their mule died. Maybe got older.

Maybe they remarried and they lost their last meal and divorce. That sounds like a tough situation. It could be. But then outfitters, mule traders or selfers. One guy I know he called me, he's got a couple of customers that, you know. So somebody might be here that is representing somebody back home. I know we got a couple outfetter's going to be here in the fall of the internet. We have one outfitter in Wyoming that bought six online.

So, yeah, we kind of get all of it, you know. So it's got several benefits, not only for the seller but also for the buyer. And that they can look and, yeah, there's four in the catalog. I really like, I think I'm going to go. Or they don't have one I'm looking for. I'm going to, you know, I'll stay at home. What are some of the things that people are wanting to see in that ring? Like, if I could go in there right now and make my mule lay down and I can get on and off of it,

I mean, that's kind of flashy. One thing it does show with some willingness to please. Yeah. It's kind of an indicator. It's like if he'll lay down and let you get on and off of him, there's probably other stuff he's doing right. But you don't need to buy him just because it's kind of like that stocklew or a great mule. We were talking about earlier. It's okay they got that.

But you don't need to buy him just because he's got that. Yeah. That needs to be an antibonis. That saw or bay mule has no white on him. Might take care of you just as good or better. Yeah. You know, so. What impresses you in the ring when you see a mule?

When that mule comes in, slow lope, you don't have to have that real short loat. Just a nice, comfortable, slow, not chargey. Yeah. Head down, loping on loose rane in a circle. If you can get a mule or horse to lope a circle in a square pin on a loose ring, it shows me you've done your work, and that mule's got a lot of potential.

has got a good mind on it. It's not looking for now. That mule knows if you're asking the local circle, that's what that mule's going to do. It's not trying to do what it wants to do. It's doing what you want. On Blood Trails, the stories don't end when the hunt is over. They just get darker.

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Season 2 of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Max Bishop is a long-time mule man and buyer. He makes his complete living, buying, and selling mules. So he has a lot of experience and has been to a lot of sales. Here's what he has to say about this A to sale. There's a lot of good mules here. There's going to be some more average-type mules here.

So for different budgets, you're going to have some high sellers here. They're probably as nice as any of the mules that are in the big cells like the J. Clark cell or Crom in the canyon. But in those cells there, almost for sure, all the mules are super high, so it's kind of limited for who can buy them. Or this is going to have some mules that are going to go really, really cheap, and some that are going to go pretty high. I'd say this is more of a sale for everybody. Yeah. Max is about to mention these Saturday night sales, which refers to a small-scale local livestock auction,

and he compares buying there to buy a catalog meal or a vetted meal that's gone through the trail course at a sale like this. The Saturday night sales, you know, they're going to have some cheap meals there, but they're generally there for a reason. They've got problems and stuff like that. So those are, you know, that's the danger of going to a regular sale sale.

These are, a lot of these are catalog mules. And so these mules are booked, you know, a month or two in advance, probably two, three months in advance. And, you know, people believe they're good mules. They're trying to get a top dollar for them and they have to come out here in the open and compete in a course. You know, you take it to a cell barn, you get that little bitty arena. You can get away with a lot of stuff and drug them up and get away with things a lot better here. They're going to have to be out in the open. They've got to go through this course.

They're going to have to back up. They're going to have to lope. They're going to walk trot. The trot is going to show if they're lame or not lame, if they're off. You know, you can kind of see. they've got to go over a bridge they've got to go through some pool noodles and things that would spook or booger some

they have before that you don't see here but they've already done it before they're allowed to come in here they have to go there and take them right along and off see if they're earshire or not earshot or not, if they're going to kick or not so those things are to be pre-approved into catalog mules if it's a catalog mule and you buy it

and you go and you check it after the sale and there's something wrong with it Mr. Johnny and then they'll make you take it back you have to pay it so you kind of have a Not a long time guarantee, but you have a guarantee if something happens, like, in the next day or two. I'm still trying to figure out who's here at this sale. I step outside, and I see some young fellas riding mules through the parking lot. I stop and talk to them.

Where are you from? Right City, Oklahoma. Are y'all selling these mules? Yes, sir. Are they, is this real yours? Yes, sir, she is. She's eight years old and been hog hunted off of and drug calves. been everywhere you can really put a meal pretty much so when you sell this meal for for the high

selling meal and you make 20 grand what are you going to do with it probably go buy me a truck he's full of it isn't he yeah no it do y'all are all these meals meals y'all worked yes sir yeah have you done this before have you raised up a meal and sold it yes sir i got two more in the sale and i've bring one up here almost every year and i sell them How old are you? I'm 15. How long you've been doing that? For about five years.

What do you hope to get for this meal that you're on right now? Hopefully 9,000. For real? You think it's worth 9,000? I hope she is. I think she is, really. You can learn a lot about a group of people by talking to their young folks. And I'd say that these boys are probably bucking the American trend

of living their lives behind a screen. This boy has been training and selling mules since he was 10 years. old. And what's unique about a mule is that the more you ride it, the more you take it places, and get it into binds and see how it responds, the more money it's worth. So time in the saddle equals money. But you've got to be able to prove that to the crowd in a really short time. I hope this boy gets his nine grand for that mule. What's the like prime, prime mule for age, color, size. The mule that is the top selling mule on Saturday,

what do you predict it's going to be? The age has crept up over the years, but I predicted it will be over five or older, probably not over 10 or 12 as a rule. The mule's going to stand 14-3 to 15-1, weigh 1,000 pounds, and you ask it, do it, does it? It's going to lope off right out of its tracks

if you want it to. It's going to ride, maybe not exactly pretty one-handed raining ride, but it's going to ride between the brighter rains. What I mean by that is, it's going to stay, that neck is going to stay between the brighter rains wherever it's at. It's going to work off your legs to some degree, be a gentle, very kind eye on it, just a nice me. What about the color? Is color meaning anything? No. It means absolutely nothing to me. It does to some people. It does to some people. And I get it, I understand it. My thing is, my old brother taught me this one.

He said, look at one with color as if it had no color. And would you still buy it? Color doesn't mean much, and some even think that solid mules are better. But it's kind of like the vanity of picking a car color. But if you're buying a mule, you know, why not get one you like? And flashy mules, which are ones that aren't solid but are multicolored, often having some white autumn, often sell better at auction. mules are measured in hands and one hand is equivalent to four inches so a 15-hand meal is 60 inches at the top of the shoulder a mule can be ridden at two or three years old but it reaches its prime often around eight years old and has a long working life stretching to over 25 years

mules can live longer than horses i once asked an old coon hunter in arkansas how long he'd been married he paused for a minute and he said well i got I got my mule the year that we got married, and that mule died just a couple of years ago when it was 54 years old. Yeah, so I've been married 57 years. That's a long time for a mule to live. And a long time to be married. But I think we're getting ahead of ourselves here. Do you even know what a mule is?

This is Johnny Kelso, Justin's father. He's kind of a legend in the mule community, and he's been at this for a long time. Well, a mule is a cross between a female horse and a male donkey, and that gets the best of both worlds, I would say. I don't precinct you care about a donkey or a horse, but when you blind them together, I like it real good. They've been used and known for years.

As far as a kindergarten knowing about it, I'm not sure. Most of them think if you drive a pair of mules in a bar of, parade, they think they're all horses. And I will tell them to look at the ears. The ears are longer. The first thing you notice. The unique characteristics of a meal is to what you can do with one. You can get the job done with ease, with less feed, with less vet bills.

They live longer, and the list goes on. It's the economics that makes a meal. But that same meal, you get a, let's say, a 1,500. pound horse in the field working, a mule could weigh 1250 or 1,300 to do the same work. Well, gas consumption for that better term on a mule or a horse is not based on how efficient the engine is. It's based on the body weight. You feed an animal, a percentage of your body weight. So if this mule weighs less than that horse does, I got to feed him less. You get less manure to haul off. It's just, it's less work in the grand scheme.

And he's doing the same amount of work. Same amount of work. So more work per pound of equine flesh. That's right. I wanted to ask Max Bishop how mules compared to horses. They've got stronger feet. You know, if you're out in the Rockies in the high country, you're out there sheep hunting or elk hunting or something. You throw a shoe on a horse.

It might go bad length before you get back in a mule. Probably never notice. They eat less. They live and work probably 10 years longer than a horse. Their cardio is insane. They'll take two of the best horses you can find out on a ranch. I'm going to wear them out, you know, just cardio-wise. I think they get more of their skeletal structure from the horse,

but they get the muscle structure more for the donkey on average, most of them. If you're up in the mountains, you're climbing hills or something, and let's say it's real sketchy. The horse's answer is going to be, I'm going to throw the gas to it. I'm going to try to get to the top, and it's either going to look really good or it's going to flip over. The mule's going to want to downshift, pick its feet, climb up, spear in, get on its knees if it has to.

and they're more full, a drive-minded on the average. And then a mule, if you look at its eyes, it's set out more on the side like a donkey instead of more forward. So a horse sees two feet at a time. It sees the left side of the right side. The mule can see all four feet at the same time. So it gives them an advantage of why they can see where they're putting the foot.

And they endure, too. I mean, they're just a hybrid between the donkey and the horse, and they endure. or they just do, they take care of drought situations. They can stand the heat better. They were used all through the south, through the years, and more horses in the north, and that had something to do with the climate, I guess.

But the meals have been used in the United States for a long time. The common knowledge, the first jacks brought to America, was gifted to George Washington by the King of Spain. He was gifted two. They weren't mammoth donkeys. They were mammoth sizes, a different breed. Longer hair, I think. earlier is a it's a Spanish type donkey.

It's believed that the first jacked donkeys arrived in America in 1785 to produce our first mules. But why mules? There's more. Part of it is their temperament both ways. One is the safety of it. If you're going to the mountains, they're more sure-fitted like their daddy was. You can't hardly knock a donkey down.

So they get their sure-footness from daddy because like I was talking earlier, their shoulders are more narrow. So you get less of a placement for their feet. And they walk more in lateral motion so they can go where a goat goes almost, you know, because they're where a horse stays out square on the corners, which makes a horse in a way more stable in some ways for, for opening and performance that kind of. They get more muscle, more mast to them.

The mule is leaner by comparison. My opinion, they're more comfortable to ride as far as just the way the saddle feels moving underneath you. Going trail riding, especially in rough country, is more comfortable on your whole body, just based on the way of a mule. mule moves versus the way a horse moves. But some people don't want the mule because they don't like the quote unquote stubbornness. You almost got to think a little harder sometimes riding that proper mule. But people in the mountains want them for safety and endurance.

By and large, you can get a little more out of a mule without killing it. You can't kill a horse by, you can run a horse to death. You can't hardly kill a mule. I mean, it's really hard to ride a mule hard enough to kill it. Yeah, they've got that self-preservation mechanism inside of them. And it's the same way with feed. We keep a lot of mules on feed in the wintertime. We sell mules, La Mish, sell probably 150 head a year up there.

So we'd go through a lot of feed-in-home, and we was going to try alfalfa one day. We bought the big three-by-three-eight bales. The mules, we couldn't keep bedding to them because the protein was so much in an alfalfa. They knew they didn't need that much. They ate the straw we bed them with, and the hay lasted probably 50% longer than a normal grass-bail would. But they knew they had to absorb some of that protein with something else, for a horse where the gorge itself on the alfalfa. If I'm going to go cowboy all day,

no, I know I probably need that good-bred cow horse that knows what he's done, knows how to work a rope and all that. Can I do it on my mule? Yes, I can. But if you say we're going to go hunting elk this fall, you're probably going to get me on that horse. It's probably going to cost you money

to make me ride a horse up the mountains. Sure, he won't take that good-bred cow horse up there. But my mule, yeah, it's bred into him genetically to handle that rougher terrain. And another difference on mule and horse, and this is why I tell a lot of people, they'll ask me, what's the difference? I said, riding them wise. I said, you could have mule and horse start them the same way, have the same guy ride both of them, and they respond to everything just a lot. I said, difference is, I said, if that trash bag, it's 100 yards out there, that horse might not see it until he gets 10 yards away.

That mule's seen it when he stepped on him at 100 yards. He's watching it. He knows where he may not, he may not spook at it, but he's already seen it. Yeah. And that's a bear out there. I'm confident that's a grizzly bear, and he's going to eat me. You know what I mean? So he may not be scared of getting eaten. He may walk right by it, but he's seen it.

He knows where it's at. Yeah. But mules are more of a, they are by far more of a one-person type animal versus a horse. And it's almost a mental thing. They're more out to be, just more out to be yours. Where a horse could be yours is. I mean, yes, you get that one horse special and might do that little extra for you, but it'll still do everything where everybody else.

is more I have to do something for the person they like the most. Yeah. I step on a mule that's broke, and when I step on it with a, you say, authority, confidence, whatever term you want to use, it may not check me very hard. My check may be, well, I got to, you know, encourage it a little more to leave the barn. What are the case is? You put an office on it, don't anything, maybe got a little fear in them because they don't know the mule. That mule might buck with them.

Whereas a horse, you're not going to have that. That horse is going to buck with me, too. It's not going to just... So there's more predictability in a horse? I think so. And it goes back to that quote unquote stubbornness of that mule's self-preservation. If I buck him off, I don't have to do this. You know what I mean?

But a mule's also smart of him. Hey, this guy here, he's sitting pretty firm in that saddle. I bet I can't shake him. So just to summarize what you're saying because it's really interesting, if you have a good, broke horse, you could put a kid on there or your grandma or the, best cowboy in the country and that horse is probably going to treat them the same same if you take a twenty thousand dollar mule yep that twenty thousand dollar meal better be just like that horse is well okay so that's what i'm saying that mule all right so maybe my my my exact my example's not the best no it is

because it's kind of the point on blood trails the stories don't end when the hunt is over they just get darker i've seen something in the road i instantly thought it was a sleeping bed and there was a full of blood. Oh my God, he doesn't have a head. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors, where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under brush and silence. Indications were he should be right there, but he wasn't. This season, we're going deeper, from cold case files to whispered suspicions, from remote mountains to frozen backwards. Each story begins in the wilderness and ends in darkness. Because out here, there are no witnesses, no cameras, just fragments and the people left behind trying to piece them back together.

He's not an honest person. He's incapable of being honest. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two of Blood Trails premieres April 16th. Follow now on Apple, Iheart, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's not a straightforward answer on which is better, a mule or a horse. It really matters what you're doing and your experience level. What makes a mule special is also the thing that can make them more difficult than a horse. And going back to the question of why there are probably 20 times as many horses as mules, it's partly because horses are just easier to get along with.

But it's also because mules are sterile, meaning they can't have offspring, so they're just harder to make. But to summarize why people love mules, it's that a good one is the safest, most comfortable ride in rough country, period. I've heard it said that you can train a horse to run off a cliff, but a mule has so much self-protection in it, often viewed as stubbornness, and he ain't running off no cliff, so the safest place to be is riding that saddle. And, just to be honest about it, a bad mule can be a much bigger outlaw than a bad horse. It's complicated. But I think Johnny probably sums it up best right here. If you're a mule person and you enjoy mules, you're going to know that feeling and all those answers. But it's hard to explain to your horse people.

But if your horse people ever get bit by the bug and they get them in you, then they can't explain it to their buddies either. It's just a mule thing. We've thought about getting some T-shirt sometimes. you know, it's just a meal thing. Insurance is high in today's world. Yes, sir. Buy one you can ride tomorrow with confidence right there. Thank you, buy one confidence.

You can ride with confidence right there. 14,000 right there. And 15,000, you're over here. The Kelso's have had a lot of time to develop their opinions on mules. Here's some family history. Kelsos come from Scotland through Ireland. Appalachians, to our knowledge, they didn't stay in the Carolinas long. They come straight to West Kentucky because they got here right around the Jackson

Purchase Time, which had been the 1820s, the Indian Removal Act, when Andrew Jackson bought the western tip of Kentucky. J.B. Kelsso and his dad moved back there. J.B. fought the Civil War, and I sent you a picture through text of him holding a big black-white-nosed jack. He finished the Civil War on top of Lookout Mountain, come back, and a lot of dark fire to the back. It was grown. It still is. He was going right there where we were out. In the wintertime, he would haul, he'd drive six mules, go to the

riverfront, hauled him back up there, and he'd bring dry goods back to all the little country stores that were three or four miles apart in our area. So mules has been our family since and ever since. We've always had mules. My great granddad, he traded a little bit. He raised family. My great-grandmother died very young. So he raised four kids, and he would barter and trade.

But he would trade mules. And back then, you had, you know, this is even up until the 16. is we had a lot of people, especially our country, in the back of the country, still using mules for agriculture purposes. So you had a lot of undesirable mules of horses that went to slaughter. He would buy slaughter mules to feed hogs with. And he had a mule that he would use to skin those mules with. He would hook that single tree to the hide.

And she was broke enough. He could tell her he was buying mules to feed his hogs. Yeah. Because he could give $3 to $4 for the mule, skin the mule once he needed a hog feed. Because it's the feed that holds itself. It won't go bad long as it's living. So it's fresh meat for the hogs.

And people that don't know hogs, I mean, you've been around enough wild hogs. They'll eat anything. I mean, they're worse than a goat. I mean, they're going to eat anything. And he would hook that single tree and that hide as he's skinning this mule. And he would tell her to ease up and she would lean into the collar, not step, lean and keep pressure on that hide so he could cut it away. But anyway, so my granddaddy grew up when he was a little boy and his daddy brought the first car home, he was mad. He said, Daddy, how in the world?

We're going to hook a horse up to this thing. I mean, we just had that ingrained in us all our life, you know. And then dad always traded livestock, farmed, grew hay, grew tobacco, worked local cell barn, traded whatever, anything. And this would have been in 79. My granddad was visiting the Army buddy in Montana, and they were out somewhere. I don't know how they come about this guy.

Got talked to him. Back then, if you wanted a mule, you had to get at least to Missouri east. I mean, that's not saying it wasn't out. area breeders, but for the most part, all the mules were in the east. And he said, I need these mules. You know, he can get them. Yeah, my son can do it. And he backed out.

Dad ended up going to Bishop, California, 1979 the first time, and it just steamrolled from there. You know, we were trading horses and cattle. Dad was there all through the 80s. I mean, I still remember him trading cattle through the late 80s. But as time went on, it was specializing more mules. And it was a niche market, but it's what? we pursued because you didn't have a lot of guys trading just mules.

So y'all became known for mules. Yes. Yes, sir. My granddaddy's a great granddad. He was J.B. Kelso. James Bethlehem Kelso, he was the first Kelso we know that had mules. And every generation since then's had mules. To some degree, they're made a living farming with them or made to live and trading more than two.

And I'm the seventh generation. So, and my kids, they mess with mule some, but not. Jody's boy, he'll be the eighth generation. I mean, right now that he's graduated college. college with the business act business degree and he's trading meals. So he's the eighth generation. And I don't know how far ago. I think Justin is underselling his kids.

You remember the story of his son Jack Roping that guy, but his daughter is a heck of a rider and as tough as nails too. I heard a story where a few years ago that she got kicked by a mule just before the auction but rode the mule in the arena that she was trying to sell and she sold it. After that, she finally went to the hospital and found that she had a lacerated liver. That's tough as nails, boys. But we still haven't really learned how the Kelso's got into this aid of mule sale. It's a very interesting story that involves selling mules into Old Mexico.

There was a guy named George Wynn from this area. He actually lived north here, I think, but he was an older guy, and he dealt with the Mexicans that would come up and trade race horses. One time this is a race, quarter horse race horse of the world's right in Oklahoma. You used to have a track of Salas. The track's still there.

I'm not even sure they race horses there anymore, but a lot of those horses is raised in this area. And they'd have a good quarter horse sale at a Shawnee Oklahoma called Triangle Sale, three-day sale, he'd have his buddies get their horses sold to these Mexicans. I don't know this for a fact. Probably, you call them the cartel now more likely.

I don't know that they traded drugs, but it was, they had a lot of money. That's what I'm trying to say. And I'm confident it probably wasn't all legal. Yeah. But George, with his ties, we were selling mules, sending to Mexico some teams and stuff, draft mules down to there, some plantations and stuff. They would use the mules.

I don't know why they used them. I was just a kid at the time, barely, probably old enough to drive, maybe, started before I. So these Mexican guys were coming here to buy race horses, and they found y'all and said, hey, we need mules too. And so y'all started selling mules to these high dollar guys, taking them back to Mexico. They went through George, never met them. We actually sold. George called Dad one time because we sent a lot of Mammoth Jacks down there to bring some of their marriage to raise their own mules.

And he called, he said, I need a 16-hand white jack. Not a gray jack, a white jack. Dad called everybody he knew in the United States trying to find this. I mean, one in the 16-hand jack in late 80s was tough to find anyway, let alone a white 16-hand jack. That's a big jack. Yes, that's a huge. Anyway, so this jack, dad finally finds him.

It was 45 miles from our house. a guy that raised jackstock. This jack ended up going to the Mexico City University as a mascot. The stories just keep getting more interesting. I bet you wouldn't have guessed that these guys were potentially selling mules to the cartel. Hard to say. But this guy, George Wend, got the Kelsos, who are from Kentucky selling mules in the Ada, Oklahoma area. Johnny Kelsso actually had multiple mule sales across the country at one time,

but today they've settled in on Ada. Eight, Oklahoma is a nice little town. It's real centrally located like the people that live in the west. And I'm saying west, like Utah and Colorado, a lot of them people there, they could drive in there in a day. And that makes it better for them. And we've been, I've been doing business there since 93, two sales year. And we just keep having it because we've made so many friends and contacts out there.

There's people in that country and a lot of people from Texas that comes up there and their families that couples that say, we take our vacations and come here. And they camp and visit with other people. And I just kind of hate not to have it, really. I've made so many friends over the years and don't want to quit. I could, but I don't want to. I asked Justin why mules seem to be in such demand right now. I was surprised by his answer.

Part of it is nobody's breaking these things anymore. Starting them as a hobby or even as a job. They're doing it. There's trainers out. I'm not saying that. Part of it is we've made our kids softer. That's just a fact. I mean, now I see, like, this generation is coming up now a little grittier than they

was. I'm not saying there's not some 30-year-old gritty kids out there. I'm not meaning it that way. But because my kids all rodeoed and watched these kids grow up, There's some greedy kids out there. That's not what I mean, but as a whole, how many kids, all right, how many kids farm that you live with or grew up on a farm that when you was in school? Most of them.

How many of your son, Bear, how many of those grew up on, or living on a farm? And so that translates to the meal world, too. So you don't have those kids like. There's more, there's less, less and more demand. Well, I don't know if the demands increased as much as you just don't have that quality of animal. And like, I used to buy a two- or three-year-old right it for six months and resell it because there would be somebody to buy a two-year-old was going good. They just didn't want to get the buck out of it.

You know, they didn't want to do the rough stuff. They wanted to train it yourself. Well, now everybody works. You work in office, you're busier. You know, back then everybody worked on a farm or you used to have them knock off at lunch because it's raining. Go home rides a mule at home meal or something. So is there not like a mule revival, though, going on culturally?

No, it is. That's the reason these older mules. trading so well. Going back to the question of why the Kelsos like mules better than horses, this story about sums it up. When I worked in California in 1995, the last trip I went on, and I'm bullheaded, especially and I was way worse bullheaded when I was 21 years old. And they had a new horse that hadn't been in the rocks yet, so any of him rode the rocks.

I get on him. Four, fifth day, we're climbing up on a slick rock, just a huge rock, and he slips and falls over backwards on me and cracks two ribs, tears a ligament in my left knee. This is a horde? I get flown off that mountain. I called my mom and dad the next day when I get landed, and I'd spend the night on top at 9,000 feet in a tent, which is so luckily the trip had a bunch of nurses, doctors. You broke up pretty bad.

No, I was hurting. But they had enough drugs. I think I could have flew off that mountain without a helicopter, but CHP come in the next day and flew me off the mountain. And I called my dad the next day to tell him what happened, and he said, that's what you get for riding a blanking horse and hung up on me. I'm 2,000 miles from home. Never been that far from home in my life.

Hadn't seen my parents in three months. He's upset with you for riding a horse and not a mule. He hung up on me. The auction is coming to a close and a fine-looking grula-colored mule named Della enters the arena. Gruula is a kind of tanish gray of what they call a mouse color, which is rare and desirable in a mule. It's a female.

This is what they call a Molly Mule, and she's out of Missouri. She's 14 hands tall, 10 years old, and a young girl in a pink Western shirt and a huge cowboy hat is riding Della in circles around the arena. It looks like she's well broke, safe, and clearly has what they call a good handle on her. The crowd is eating it up. I don't care where you gotta go, but you gotta find them before you can buy. Is that safe that safe, that gym?

We've done that meal three and a half years and a half years. You've done bigger things and bigger places. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. But I'm telling you right now, guys, this is the meal right there. right here if it goes west that's a 35,000. I guarantee you we've sold a lot of that's probably for a lot more money.

If you come to get to a second new, if you don't let the money get in the way of ownership, I know $17,000 sounds like a lot of money, but here, take $17,000 right to this leadership to see what it gets you. It won't get you nothing. Take 17,000 dollars to go to the rest of the office. See what it'll get you. It won't get you nothing. Take 17,000 dollars to go to the funeral home. Everything, very.

17, 5. 18,000. 18. 18. 18. 18. Don't know that's 10. 18,000.

18,000. 18, 18, 18. 18, 18. 18. So, right. I hope you understood that. Della just sold for $17,500. And I hope you understood what the auctioneer said before that.

He said, $17,000 won't get you a new truck or even buy you a proper burial at the funeral home. And Della ended up selling as the high selling mule for the 2025 spring Ada, Oklahoma sale. And she was purchased by somebody from Texas. This was a lot of fun. And if you're looking to go to a sale this year, Ada's got another sale coming this fall in early October.

And I'm sure you'll be seeing me at Ada again. I know on this episode we've learned a ton about mules, and I can't thank you enough for listening to Bear Greece and Brent's This Country Life podcast. Please leave us a review on iTunes, share this podcast with a friend, and keep the wild places wild because that's where the bears live. Last spring, Clay Newcomb and I collaborated with Jason Phelps at Phelps game calls and building each of our own favorite turkey

diaphragms called prime cuts. Now, I'm going to tell you, I love mine because it's easy to use. I'm not going to go, I'm not going to win a turkey calling contest. It's just not going to happen. But when I run this call, I get the sounds that gobblers are looking for. I have a great turkey hunting track record. if you go listen to real turkeys out in the woods, they're not going to win calling contests, right?

That's who I listen to. I can make those sounds on my cut. I also hunt with Phelps's cut, and I hunt with Clay's cut because they're all three great cuts. Check out Prime Cuts at Phelpsgamecalls.com. I think you'll be glad you did, and you'll find out that the Steve Ronella cut is an easy-to-use cut for beginning callers

who just want to start making good turkey noises and getting action. This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human.