How Wallace the mule made an ass out of snobs who banned him from dressage
He’s a handsome beast with a penchant for ginger biscuits
THIS is a rags-to-riches tale of loneliness, hardship, hope, perseverance and redemption, with all the ingredients to become a Hollywood blockbuster.
The cast includes a kindly 65-year-old horsewoman called Lesley Radcliffe who, unable to ride horses after breaking her neck, began fostering donkeys and mules; and a young groom and rider who’s ridden since she was four years old.
But the real star is Wallace The Great, an 11-year-old rescue mule originally from Co. Antrim who likes nothing more than rolling in dirt, stuffing himself with hay and biscuits, and having the insides of his velvety ears rubbed — hard.
Over recent weeks, Wallace has become the surprise poster boy for equine equality after being banned from a British Dressage competition because he was a mule (which has just 63 chromosomes) rather than a horse (which has 64).
Last month, after a hard-fought battle against ‘mulescrimination’, Wallace The Great (with 31-year-old groom Christie Mclean atop his broad, flat back) became the first mule to take part in an official British Dressage show at the Summerhouse Equestrian centre in Gloucester. What’s more, Wallace won. Walking and trotting, neck arched, body in perfect alignment, he saw off eight horses to romp home with the winner’s scarlet rosette, a mark of 67.4 and some very confidenceboosting comments from the judges.
‘Well done. Pleasing rhythm and activity,’ they wrote. ‘Could be more supple, but a lovely willing attitude.’
His many supporters, including multiple Olympic medallist and dressage legend Carl Hester, who learned to ride on a donkey, were ecstatic.
‘If someone puts a stumbling block in your way, don’t give up, simply step over it, like Wallace did!’ tweeted one. ‘Hurry up and make a movie!’ said another.
Passing van drivers toot their horns and shout, ‘Oi, is that the famous mule? I saw him on telly!’ as he clip-clops past.
Given how in demand he is, I feel blessed he’s found time in his busy schedule of dust-rolling, grazing and general swaggering around to show me his dressage skills.
Many celebrities seem smaller and somehow diminished when you meet them, but, in the quivering flesh, Wallace is a truly handsome beast, even with his comically big ears.
His hair is shiny, his tail long and swishy, his mane cropped short, his eyes huge, his lashes lustrous and his teeth surprisingly pearly given his penchant for ginger biscuits.
Like all mules, Wallace is the product of a male donkey and a female horse. (A female donkey and male horse produce a hinny). I am assured by Lesley and Christie that he possesses a startling intellect.
‘Mules are highly intelligent creatures and question things far more than horses do,’ says Lesley. ‘And Wallace is a particularly able mule. Mules being stubborn is a myth. If he seems stubborn, it’s only because he’s outwitted you!’ Christie is just as smitten. ‘Horses are just, well, horses — but with mules, the brain seems more active,’ she says. ‘So, unlike a horse, Wallace will make a connection. He can read your thoughts — he’ll know what you’re thinking.’
And with that, it’s time to clamber on to his back for a bit of ‘walk, trot, walk’.
Christie swiftly warns: ‘He’s very, very responsive to touch. He needs to tune in with your brain. Just keep talking to him, tell him how great he is. Remember, he’ll be thinking what you’re thinking so think: “Calm, calm, calm.” ’
And off we trot, surprisingly quickly, and I cling on as calmly as possible.
I try to remember all the things that are so great about mules, so he can mind-read how supportive I am. How they hail from Asia, and live for 40 years — a good 15 years longer than horses. How they have far better hearing and eyesight, and work harder and longer.
Lesley tells me: ‘A mule will carry a third more weight, pull a third more weight, go a third longer in time on a third less food.’
Sadly, Wallace’s glossy flanks beneath me belie difficult beginnings. His early years are shrouded in mystery, but when he was about six (you can age mules by examining their teeth), he was discovered wandering around a village in Co. Antrim.
It was winter, cold and dark, and seeing that Wallace was clearly hungry, the kind-hearted villagers turned the bus stop into a makeshift stable for him and kept him stocked with hay and oats. He thrived and, not surprisingly, stuck around.
But come summer, when he hungrily discovered the tasty joys of their floral displays and prize vegetable patches (the village was full of very keen gardeners), he was rather less welcome.
Wallace was despatched first to a local animal refuge, where he ate them out of house and home, and then to The Donkey Sanctuary charity, which transported him across the Irish Sea to Sidmouth in Devon to join all their other mules.
It was here that he met Lesley Radcliffe, his guardian (angel).
Lesley has always been mad about mules — and with good reason. Her grandfather was a muleteer in the First World War, in charge of caring for the mules in the trenches.
And as a child, she met a mule called Lucy, who lived on a nearby farm, and fell in love. ‘I rode her for four years, and then one day I turned up and she was
gone,’ she tells me. ‘The farmer had sold her. I was devastated.’
But the seed was sown and she spent her life working with horses. She was a riding instructor for the disabled for 40 years.
When she and Wallace met five years ago, she had already fostered several donkeys and mules from The Donkey Sanctuary and taken them home with her.
Their meeting came by chance. Billy, one of Lesley’s other mules, had terminal cancer and they had returned to The Donkey Sanctuary for palliative treatment.
‘I wanted to be with him when he was put to sleep,’ she says quietly.
Billy’s sad loss was Wallace’s happy gain. They knew the moment they saw each other.
‘He was just lovely,’ recalls Lesley. ‘In a whole herd of mules, he was calm, placid and even allowed me to walk around him and pick up his feet,’ she says.
So she took him home with her, where he immediately fitted in with her two other mules, Milo and Bertie, and donkeys Trevor and Ned, who is 40 and blind. These days, Wallace looks out for Ned — when he isn’t being cheeky and adventurous.
‘He would be in the house if he had the chance!’ says Lesley.
He adores meeting people and being fussed over — but most of all he loves Lesley, who spends at least three hours a day grooming, tending, cuddling, feeding him ginger biscuits (‘All donkeys and mules love ginger,’ she tells me) and just, well, loving him.
She goes all pink and glowy just talking about him.
For his part, Wallace looks at her every other second, just to check she’s looking at him — which, of course, she is — and his ears prick and perk forward with happiness.
For the first year, no one rode him. Then Lesley took him to a local demonstration by worldfamous ‘horse whisperer’ Monty Roberts, who declared Wallace The Great ‘highly intelligent’ and ready to be ridden. That was the beginning. Christie, a groom friend of Lesley, says: ‘He was just a joy — and so responsive.’ She tried out dressage on him, discovered he was ‘a natural’ and caused a stir when she started competing in local events with him earlier this year. It was when one of Lesley’s horses was lame that she tried to enter Wallace in the national dressage event. But she was told: ‘No mules, thank you very much.’
‘It didn’t seem fair,’ she says. ‘He’s so much brighter and more tuned in than most horses, and I felt he could win.’
Christie isn’t the sort to give up easily and started a campaign on social media. In our equality-obsessed society, outrage snowballed until, earlier this month, the sport’s governing body in Britain changed the rules to include all animals ‘born from a mare’ — and the rest, as they say, is history. Naturally, there was joy when they won their first highlevel dressage event.
Thankfully, for once, Wallace didn’t eat any of the flower baskets in the parade ring. Today, as we jig about, I’m sure he can sense my nerves, but he is calm and kind. And when I kiss his warm neck, he smells of saddle-soap and musk and I can see why everyone loves him so much. As Christie says: ‘Wallace is a bonding kind of animal. He makes deep friendships. He’s had a difficult upbringing and needs continuity now.’ With one big victory under his straining girth, there is no letting up. In October, it’s the British Regional Championships, where his mettle will really be tested by adding the canter — not his strongest point right now. ‘We’ve got a lot of work to do,’ says Christie. So what about Wallace in Hollywood? ‘He’ll play himself, of course!’ says Christie. And as we watch him, standing in his horsebox, eating ginger biscuits, banging the floor with his oiled hoof, whinnying impatiently to get on, it is clear he’s already a Hollywood star in the making. Albeit a star with very large ears. Although it remains to be seen if he’ll make a guest appearance at the Dublin Horse Show next week...
‘Unlike a horse, Wallace can read your thoughts’