Hobbyhorse gallops toward Olympic glory? Inside the quirky quest for 2028

If you ever wanted to be an Olympic champion, now is your chance.

You’ll stand at the podium, gold medal around your neck. Your picture will be on a box of Wheaties. Endorsements will roll in like there’s no tomorrow. Your hometown will throw a parade.

You can do it. Olympic Champion.

All you need, apparently, is a broomstick with a horsehead stuck on one end, a pair of tippy-toe prancing shoes and not be afraid to look like a completely deranged, sidetracked, middle-aged, long-gone imbecile in front of a hundred million people.

It’s called Hobby Horse. There are international clubs and tournaments.

This “sport” has transcended from 7-year-old girls skipping around the house pretending to ride a horse that is really a boomstick adorned with a fuzzy-wuzzy, frilly-willie, soft-and-squeezie colorful horse head impaled on the front end. 

It’s about to be the new Olympic sport. 

Tryouts at your local kindergarten. 

To be respectful (occasionally difficult in this space of The Paper) the “sport” involves participants using a hobby horse — read: a broomstick with a horse head—to mimic traditional equestrian movements such as jumping and dressage. 

In the early 2000s Finland was credited with starting the “Hobby horse movement,” states Horse Network digital magazine. So, in addition to saunas, glass igloos, reindeer, and Heineken … wait, that’s a Dutch beer. I meant Helsinki… we now have Hobby Horse. Coming to LA2028.

And you thought they hooted when Curling became an Olympic sport.

At Monday’s staff meeting, Editor Angela “Strike-Through” Copeland asked me if I was writing a column this week.

“You better believe it,” I said.

“About what,” she said. “Please, not parking again.”

“The next great Olympic sport,” I said. “Hobby horse.”

The Paper’s news staff became very still. The only sound was the Industrial Air Filter keeping COVID at bay. They looked at me unabashedly bewildered. I should have taken a picture. It’s not easy to stun this group.

“Go ahead,” I said. “Google it.” They did. 

From somewhere in the newsroom boomed this comment: “Get outta TOWN! Hey Angela, you gotta see this Goomer high-stepping around the gym with a broomstick between his legs like he’s Roy Rogers off his rocker.”

I told them that the Federation of Equestrian International (FEI) petitioned to have Hobby Horse included in the 2024 Paris Olympics. 

Surprise surprise, it didn’t make the cut. Too bad. Snoop Dogg would have some fun.

That might change in four years because Hobby Horse is being considered for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, said FEI President Ingmar De Vos.

FEI Secretary Ivana Trothof opined a unique take on the popularity of Hobby Horse. Real live horses cost too much. 

“The single biggest barrier to participation is the punitive cost,”  Trothof told Horse Network digital magazine. “Most people simply can’t afford a horse, let alone one capable of competing at an Olympic Games. So, we thought, why not eliminate the horse altogether?” 

And there it is, readers. Let’s just ELIMINATE THE HORSE from Olympic equestrian events. Then anyone with a broomstick can be a champion! As long as you are not Harry Potter or the witch from Oz.

To ensure that I get things straight I put in a long-distance call to Finland’s Center of Hobbyhorse Tournaments (Sentter of Hobbyhorse Tuurnaments), which was eventually reached by dialing about 138 numbers. 

I spoke to Eleni Zolikko, the “Sentter’s” director of public information, or, as they say in the sauna, Julkistiedottaja Johtaja (pronounced Yool-kee-stee-eh-dot-tah-yah Yoah-tah-yah).

I’ll call her EZ to keep it easy.

ME: Hobby horse tournaments. Talk to me.

EZ: Yuu no those toy horses with a cutsi horse hed, prettiest horse yu’ll ever see, stuck on one end? Meid for kids, little girls mostly. 

ME: And?

EZ: And dey ride dem around de yard. Yelling, Giddy-up, and Vhoa dere, Buttercup.

ME: Ride what?

EZ: The steek. Yoo steek the steek between yoor legs with the horse hed in frant.

ME: (Silence)

EZ: Yoo trott around the room. Holding the “horse” between yoor legs. Deedent yoo ever ride one?

ME: Do I sound like Shirley Temple?  I’m a guy. I have never rode a stick horse IN MY LIFE! I’d look like a total weirdo, holding a broomstick between my legs, skipping ’round the room, petting a horse head jammed on the front and saying, what’d you say?  Whoa there Buttercup? Hell, I’d be arrested before breakfast.

EZ: Hobby horsing oritsineitted in Finland in the early tuusands and has since evolved from a playful aktivity to a serious kompetitive sport.

ME: Don’t say.

EZ: Hobby horse tuurnaments have groon into a recognised kompetitive sport with following, partickularly in Finland.

ME: Finland.

EZ: In tuu-thousand twenty-three, Finland hosted the Finnish Hobbyhorse Championship. It attracted wan-thousand eight-hundred riders.

ME: Riders?

EZ: Loughead you! The events har two main desceplines: show jumping, where competitoors navigate a course of obstakles, and dressage, which fokuses on the precision of movements.

ME: Who, ah, trains these, ah, horses?

EZ: Trains the horses? There’s no horses, you idieet Amerikan. It’s a steek with a fuzzy horsehed on the end. Yoo Americans. Yoo never see de beauty in simplicity. Always vant to komplikaate de world vit yoor komplikations all de time.

ME: Well, simplify this: Good night. 

So what’s the next Great Olympic Sport? Beer pong? I got it, Rock Scissors Paper. It is another game from elsewhere, as in either South Carolina or China. 

It is, indeed, a Chinese game later imported to Japan before making its way here to the beer-pong beer halls to see who buys the next round.

It’s the perfect new Great Olympic Sport. It contains “Throws” and a “Shoot.” All the athletic elements. What does Hobby Horse have? A couple of Giddy Ups, a Whoa there Buttercup, and maybe, in case of a particularly rambunctious Horsehead on a Stick, exile to the attic.

Sign me up.