The Ozark Riverways Foundation’s annual Rendezvous at the Ridge brought hundreds of people to the Big Rock Candy Mountain Resort on Saturday, with the biggest crowd of the day viewing the mule jumping event. Spectators formed rows of lawn chairs and sat on hay bales while the mules took turns showing their skill and guile making it over a pole. Among those bringing trained mules was Jerry Nelson of the North American Jumping Mules Association. Before the competition started, Nelson was happy to share a little bit about the uniquely American craft.
“We'd like for everybody to come out and experience this, it’s kind of a lost and dying art form and we're trying to keep it going,” Nelson said. “I got my first coon hunting mule when I was five years old. I'm 63 now, and I've had them all my life. It's just something I enjoy doing. My grandfather taught me and I'm trying to pass that on to my grandkids.”
With Nelson were three mules: Miss Bonita, Baby Sadie and Baxter. At 23 years old, Baxter has won Missouri’s state championship for mule jumping 16 times as well as records in Oklahoma, Arkansas and Texas.
“His best jump is 62 inches and he stands 48 inches,” Nelson said. “All you could see that day before the jump was this much of his ears sticking up. He really surprised us.”
So far as the competition, Nelson said each mule gets one minute and two tries to jump over the pole, which is raised higher and higher until only one mule is left.
“The history of it started with us coon hunters,” Nelson said. “We would go out in the woods with dogs chasing the coons riding our mules, come to a fence, throw a tarp or a coat over it, and jump over the fence. Well, it got to be a competition. My mule can jump higher than yours. Mine can do better, so that's how mule jumps got started.”
Nelson said the Rendezvous at the Ridge event was the first of the 2026 season. If you wanted to catch a show, he said there will be a big mule jumping show at the Missouri State Fair in August as well as a show in October at Pea Ridge, Arkansas. Beyond that, Nelson said Missouri is also home to two excellent mule publications including Western Mule magazine and Mules and More magazine.
“When I was a kid growing up, I'd go to mule jumping contests all over the country and it's not so much about winning and losing, it's meeting the people out here and enlightening people about what we can do with our animals,” Nelson said. “The people that we go with here in Missouri, the North American Jumping Mule Association, we're one big family. We've all been doing it together 15, 20, 30 years, and we just go have fun enjoying doing what we're doing.”
