Mule Man Ray Woodside
by Anna Arnold
Ray Woodside and his wife Brenda live in the northern Rockies of Montana, just a bit east of Missoula, where the rough terrain, wide open spaces and wildlife are legendary. Although Ray was a dairy farmer until age 52, he bought his first mules in 1988. He’s been training mules to pack, ride and drive ever since. His many years packing, hunting, working and enjoying all of what this life has to offer.
He was the head packer for the Rich Ranch Outfitters, Seeley Lake, Mont., from 1995 until 2003. While packing for the ranch 20 to 30 miles a day, Ray learned to love his long-eared friends. They were always dependable and trustworthy.
While working at the ranch, Ray started to train his mule, Willie, to ride. Willie has been the Overall High Point Riding Mule for six out of the last eight years at Montana Mule Days and has won at many other shows. Ray and Willie have competed at many Extreme Cowboy Races for nationally known clinician Craig Cameron. They have placed in the top 5 numerous times. In 2010, the High Point and Reserve High Point Performance Mules at Montana Mule Days were both trained by Ray.
In his spare time, Ray shows off his mules and his own skills all over the West and is well known in the mule world. Ray is one of those mule men whose idea of fun just looks like a lot of work to most. He’s a man whose lifetime of packing, demonstrations, and exhibiting shows just how much he enjoys this life with his mules.
In the last few years, Ray has been training mules to drive. He said, “I want to have something to do with mules when I can’t ride any longer!” Ray has trained or retrained all of his mules that he drives. He competes pulling wagons, carts and chariots.
Retirement - as most know it - just isn’t in his vocabulary. The idea of a quiet rocking chair on the porch was never considered. Instead, Ray decided to train his mules to chariot race! It takes quite a lot of physical and mental strength, not to mention quick thinking, to race these two-wheeled balancing acts, even behind your most trusted mules. But Ray didn’t back down from the challenge, learning the ropes mainly from horse people and then adapting those lessons to the temperament of his mules. His persistence paid off.
Ray says trying to control an animal with the temperament of both a horse and a donkey takes discipline and patience. “So, when you combine those two backgrounds together, you get a completely different animal that sometimes they want to run; sometimes they want to stand and fight. And it’s a little bit different trying to train them from the horses. In fact, a lot of horse trainers won’t even try to train a mule.”
Woodside says that one of the secrets to driving two mules at the same time are strong lower body strength and fast coordination, something he does quite well. He says he used to ride Willie as fast as the wind blows but now, in his version of retirement, he just sits in the buggy or chariot and lets the mules do all the work!
Ray wants to educate the public, especially the younger generation, about chariot racing and mules in general. He says the mules have a tougher reputation to break.
“People say, ‘Well, they’re so stupid they won’t even cross a creek.’ Well, they’re not really stupid. They don’t want to get in there and get bogged down and die so, they really are pretty smart. But they’ve had that obstinate character for a long time.”
Maybe, just maybe, Ray has a little of that mule character in him as well. He is now living his dream retirement, training and working with his mules every day, no matter what the weather is, and in Montana, that’s saying something. The way Ray works with his animals makes it look easy, as well as enjoyable, and proves that retirement, at least for Ray, will never be in the slow lane.
To read Anna’s introduction to Ray Woodside, and to read a story by Ray on his lifeflight out of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, see the September 2020 issue of Mules and More, available to purchase here: https://www.mulesandmore.com/back-issues/920