Two sports halls in Kladno are filled with hundreds of young girls in athletic attire on the second weekend in May. None of them is missing one particular prop – a plush horse head attached to a short stick, called a hobby horse. With it, they imitate riding a real horse.

More than five hundred of them qualified for the domestic championship in this youth discipline from all over the republic and Slovakia. The girls performed gymnastic elements and athletic feats with their dead horses in front of judges and spectators, jumping over meter obstacles with them or running like horses do.

“We compete in parkour, show jumping, dressage and horse racing, these are English disciplines. And then we compete here in western disciplines, which are western running and western horse riding,” said Barbora Fialová, president of the Czech Hobby Horse Association.

Before the championship begins, the children are given tasks that they have practiced and here they present them to the judges. They evaluate what they do and how they work for them. Some contestants also prepare western-themed clothes or match the color of the clothes to the color of the horse, while others do not really care about it.

“We think the big advantage of this sport is that children can make their own hobby horses, there are a lot of templates on the Internet for sewing them. And of course, there are also special shops for it,” Fialová said. The Czech Republic is said to have the largest such shop in Europe.

For example, seventeen-year-old Barbora from Ždírc nad Doubravau started sewing by hand. She made dozens, for herself and to order.

Bára is among the oldest competitors in the championship and holds the high jump record with a “hobby”, as insiders usually call a home-made horse. He jumped with her over the bar of 142 centimeters. In Kladno, he managed “only” 140 cm.

“I started my hobby of riding horses in 2021 and quarantine brought me there, I was bored at home so I tried it, I made my first horse and it still haunts me,” she explains when and how she got into the unusual activity.

He particularly enjoys the movement itself and the support of the fans, saying he achieves better performances thanks to the cheers. “Many people think of it as a children’s pastime, as a hobby, but I definitely think of it as a sport,” he added.

A slightly younger contestant, eleven-year-old Lenka from Kostelce nad Černými lesy, feels the same way. “A lot of people say that horse riding is fun, but be careful, it’s not! Try jumping, for example, 120 centimeters on a horse with a pole between its legs that weighs 600 grams!” Lenka says enthusiastically.

She also got into this activity because of the pandemic. Because the stables were closed at the time, her parents suggested horse riding as an alternative hobby. “And I still ride and it’s the love of my life,” she added.

“What I enjoy is that I feel like I’m on a real horse and I feel more like myself than when I do other sports,” Veronika from Úval told us, who has also made many new friends thanks to horse riding.

Finland is considered the birthplace of horse riding. According to the association, it came to us 5-7 years ago. Sport is especially interesting for girls. It is most often used by those between the ages of seven and fourteen.

“But in Finland, the country where the sport originated, it is the opposite, where young children are barely involved at all. It is mostly driven by young women between the ages of fifteen and thirty,” Drahomíra Košvancová, the organization’s vice president, tells us one of the interesting things.

“The popularity of this sport is skyrocketing in our country. I explain it by saying that this is very big news. Many of the girls love live horses and this is an opportunity for them to get to know the environment and get to know many elements of equestrian sports as well,” Košvancová said.

He said the financial demands associated with riding and owning a live horse or possible allergies to the animal could also play a role. Both of those hurdles would be removed if there was a dead horse at the stake.