One of the many news blurbs that saturated my Facebook was an article about a recent event in

Frankfurt, Germany.  Last weekend they held their first Hobby Horse Championship, with hundreds of young riders competing in jumping and dressage of their wooden stick horses. A hobby horse competition?

Of course, I had a hobby horse when I was young.  It was a beautiful pink and white beauty with long blonde “hair,” and a bright red “mouth” that I named Pete.  Pete Petersen.  For about a month, I took it with me everywhere, including swimming in the lake and shopping at Zayre’s, much to my mother’s chagrin.  I soon tired of this charade and moved on to play with Barbie Dolls.

The next time I became acquainted with this type of horse was when I started running bus trips for the recreation group for adults with disabilities for which I volunteered.  We would make a few trips to Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, and often did weeklong trips coordinated by Conway Tours.  In order to break up the long, monotonous bus rides, we would play games.  They loved to play Bingo, and we used large print Bingo cards with slides to cover the numbers.  A tote of prizes on wheels would slide up and down the aisle for the winner to choose a wonderful, but low cost, prize.

We also would play the horseracing game for which I had purchased six different, colorful hobby horses.  Because we had several people who are blind in the group, I had done my research and found horses that actually neighed.  In addition to being assigned different numbers, each horse had a different neighing sound, which was a real bonus. They would start at the back of the bus, and I would roll one dice.  Horses number one through six would move forward one seat, based on the number rolled.  The bus riders would shoot and cheer for their chosen horse number, and the game was always a lot of fun.  I loved those hobby horses, but they recently succumbed to my flooded basement which drowned out their auditory benefits.

So, it is with a great deal of surprise that I learn that hobby horse racing has become a “thing,” which was started in Finland where riders trotted their hobby horses through the Nordic forests some 20 years ago.  In Germany, there are currently more than 5,000 active athletes and more than 200 clubs in the country. 

Hobby horsing is basically riding an artificial (man-made) horse head atop a stick.  One of the main reasons why hobby horsing has become so popular in the first place is because it offers a cheaper alternative to real horseback riding. It might look like “playing pretend” but it is reportedly a lot of fun in addition to good exercise. It is mainly practiced by teenage girls or girls aged between 10 and 18. However, there are no rules preventing boys from participating, and quite a few of them have started to enroll in competitions in the last few years. The sport also seems to have quite the following in the United States, with several different divisions, and they held their first competitions this past year.

Similar to traditional equestrian competitions, judges access each contestant’s style, technique and creativity. For dressage, officials look at the rider’s posture, skills and body positioning to see if they are using elegant leg movements, with their toes touching the ground first, as well as the various speeds and gaits in their routine. Jumpers are also judged on their posture, as well as jumping over the center of the obstacles, sticking the landing and keeping a steady pace.

To my surprise, I learned that hobby horsing was suggested to be part of the Olympic Games in Paris, alongside other non-traditional sports such as break dancing and surfing. Alas, it was not included this year’s Olympics, but they hope it will be included in 2028 games in Los Angelas.