Melissa Glowinski and Jessica Rabbit at the Extreme Cowboy Racing Futurity in Glen Rose, Texas, in November 2019

by Marlene Quiring

Extreme Cowboy Racing is becoming a popular and crowd pleasing event across North America. It is a timed sport involving obstacles, emphasizing speed with control. Contestants are judged on each obstacle, including their approaches and departures. They are also scored for their overall horsemanship. Multiple levels of competition range: Young Guns, Youth, Novice, Intermediate, Non Pro, Pro and a class for 55 and older. Depending on your level there are between nine and 13 obstacles in each division.

Melissa Glowinski is 25, from central Alberta, and has been training horses professionally since she was 18. She’s been involved in various riding disciplines, including dressage, but really has settled on western riding with Extreme Cowboy Racing becoming her passion.

Melissa’s first introduction into the world of longears began with a little white feral donkey that her dad rescued from a pen of ostriches. The donkey threw a lot of learning curves at Melissa’s dad despite his experience with horses. They made so many mistakes trying to tame and train this rascal, but despite this, the donkey was very kind and forgiving and eventually became Melissa’s first saddle mount and also her first love.

Since then, for one reason or another, there was always a rescue mule or donkey living at their place. Melissa’s real interest in training a mule was piqued later by a beautiful, smart rescued molly mule that had been used in rodeos. Melissa realized that the mule knew more than she did, so her attempts at training her were very difficult. She realized that her success with horses did not necessarily give her the knowledge and understanding needed for this mule.

A couple years ago, the opportunity and funds became available for Melissa to purchase a young mule that she had admired since the mule was a foal. Melissa bought her in the hopes that she would be suitable to compete in Extreme Cowboy Racing. Thus, Jessica Rabbit came into Melissa’s life. While training her, she soon also fell in love with her. “I never thought I would be so hooked on mules,” said Melissa. “I used to make fun of people that made the switch. I would sluff off people that told me, ‘Try a mule and you’ll never go back.’ I can totally see now where people would rather do mules than horses.”

Melissa says that Jessica was a confident girl as she received a great start from her first owners. Not finding her too much different to work with than horses, she did find that Jessica required a much higher level of consistency and commitment, and if Melissa lost her focus for a split second, suddenly she was the one being trained. “I was very impressed by her ability to apply ideas that she learned to any exercise that required it,” said Melissa. “It took me three hours and a lot of sweat from both of us to get her through her first cowboy curtain but once accomplished, she’d confidently gallop through anything I pointed her at. That’s what makes mules particularly suited for this sport, if you are willing and humble and put the honest work in.”

However, at their first show, Jessica was overwhelmed and distracted the whole day until she got into the show pen. “Then she put her game face on and showed up like no horse ever had for me,” said Melissa. “That was when I got the first glimpse of the fierce competitor that she is.”

This duo went on to win an impressive array of titles, including Alberta Provincial Champion, Western Canadian Regionals Reserve Champion, Extreme Cowboy Alberta Finals Champion and Highpoint Champion and Xtreme Wildrose Finals Reserve and Highpoint Champion. All of these were won in the Green horse division for horses that are new to the sport, as well as 3 or 4 years old and Futurity bound.

By the fall of 2019, Melissa felt they were ready to compete at the World’s Futurity division in Texas. The year before she had competed with her beloved horse Boomer, who was the reason she became hooked on Extreme Cowboy Racing. Boomer and Melissa formed a strong bond and partnership in their short time together, but it wasn’t to last, as later Boomer lost his life due to an injury. Ironically, she is reminded of their bond every time she rides Jessica as Boomer was responsible for the split in Jessica’s ear!

The Extreme Cowboy Racing Futurity was held at Glen Rose, Texas, in November at the Somervell Expo Center, a 30 plus hour drive from central Alberta. Jessica had some big boots to fill. As far as we know, Jessica was the only mule to have competed in this class, and she certainly stirred up interest from the moment she arrived. She quickly became the crowd favorite. As Melissa said, “I could have sold her many times over!’” Jessica is not just beautiful, but surprised everyone by her level of performance. She excelled at sliding stops, spins and roll backs and Melissa credits her as being a high drive, sensitive mule. She found that most people didn’t know mules could be that athletic or perform so well. On the first day they placed ninth in the top ten. On the second day, they had a steering mishap and placed 13th. That dropped them down to 12th place overall, just missing the top ten by five points.

Melissa plans to continue with Jessica and, after some time off, to start showing her in the Pro events in 2020 and 21, with a goal to return to the World’s to compete with her in the Pro division. Meanwhile she has acquired another mule to train, 4-year-old Elliot, and if he does not show talent in her favorite sport, Melissa will take him in the direction he is best suited for. She says she will always work with horses, but now also definitely mules. They have proven to her that they have all the abilities of a horse and even more!

For more information about Extreme Cowboy Racing in Texas contact Extreme Cowboy Racing at www.extremecowboyassociation.com. In Alberta, Canada, contact Extreme Cowboy Alberta at www.extremecowboyracing.ca. or Xtreme Wildrose at xtremewildrose.webs.com.

Mule Competes in Extreme Cowboy Racing Futurity