Year-End: How Horses, Burros, and Mules Are Celebrated (With Respect)
Across the world, equines show up in the places that matter most to people—winter rituals, heritage festivals, hometown parades, and old working traditions that never quite disappeared. Some celebrations honor equines through symbolism and storytelling. Others keep them front-and-center through carefully organized events with modern rules, health planning, and community oversight.
Here’s a year-end tour of horse, burro, and mule celebrations that illustrate something worth carrying into the new year: real celebration looks like stewardship.
A winter horse tradition made of story, not spectacle (Wales)
One of the most fitting equine traditions for the end of the year is Wales’ Mari Lwyd, a midwinter custom that involves a decorated “hobby horse” (often a horse skull mounted on a pole, carried under a sheet) visiting homes with songs and playful challenges. It’s deeply horse-themed, seasonal, and rooted in community—without asking anything of a living animal. Museum Wales
Mari Lwyd At Sidmouth Folk Festival | Wxtim, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
A horse fair with formal participation structure (Spain)
In Jerez de la Frontera, the Feria del Caballo includes the iconic Paseo de Caballistas (riders and carriages parading through the fair). What makes this event notable from a “respect” standpoint is how structured participation is: public-facing materials and municipal coverage describe registration/authorization and equine identification/documentation as part of participation, reflecting that the horses involved are treated as a managed equine gathering—not an informal free-for-all. Cadena SER
Burros as teammates: pack burro racing (American West)
Burro celebrations often come from working history—especially mining communities where donkeys carried gear through difficult terrain. Pack burro racing keeps that partnership idea at the center: the human runs while the burro travels alongside on lead.
The official rules for the World Championship Pack Burro Race (Fairplay, Colorado) are blunt in the best way: “NO RIDING.” The runner may lead, drive, push, pull, drag, or carry the burro—but may not ride. Burro Days
That single rule tells the story: the point is teamwork and care, not using the animal as a vehicle.
Mules in the spotlight: Bishop Mule Days (California) and Mule Day (Tennessee)
Mules have their own deep cultural lane—built around work, endurance, and practicality.
In California, Bishop Mule Days is a major mule-centered celebration, and it’s also unusually explicit about animal health planning. The event publishes contestant biosecurity information and emphasizes protecting animal health in line with guidance connected to the California Department of Food and Agriculture and UC Davis resources. Mule Days
In Tennessee, Mule Day in Columbia has grown into a multi-day festival with a parade as its highlight, keeping mules visible as living heritage rather than a footnote in history. Visit Columbia TN
Mule Day in Columbia, TN User:Hesterm77, CC BY-SA 3.0 <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/>, via Wikimedia Commons
The year-end connection to Broken Arrow
These traditions differ wildly—Welsh winter pageantry, Spanish horse fair culture, Colorado burro teamwork, and mule-centered American festivals. But they all point to the same truth:
Equines matter to people—and the best way to honor that is to care for them well.
That’s exactly where Broken Arrow comes in. Broken Arrow exists for the part of “celebration” that isn’t a single weekend—it’s the daily work: providing safe care, rehabilitation support, and sanctuary when an animal needs a soft landing; building consistent routines; and helping the community turn admiration into action through volunteering, donating, and sharing the horses’ stories.
A respectful way to end the year is simple: keep the tradition alive by protecting the animal behind it.