Hobby horse championship comes to America thanks to four girls’ love for fast-growing sport

Hundreds of athletes brought their horses to Almont, Michigan, last month for an American championship event. But the horses weren’t flesh and blood — they were stuffed heads on sticks that the competitors rode, make-believe-style, as they hurdled obstacles and performed routines.

Welcome to the world of hobby horse competitions, where human athletes play the part of both horse and rider.

The strange equestrian-inspired sport, first popularized in Finland, has spread to the U.S., where four young fans helped stage the first American championship last month.

“A lot of people look and they’re just like, ’Oh, a little girl running around.’ It is so hard,” said 13-year-old Mirabelle Whitman, one of the event’s organizers. “It takes so much athleticism. It’s like dance, mixed with track, mixed with gymnastics.”

The first U.S. Hobby Horse Championships, organized by four girls aged 10 to 18, drew 120 competitors and an additional 300 spectators.

The hobby horse riders put on a show inside a middle school gymnasium.

In dressage, the attendees pumped their legs and perfected their posture in four-minute routines.

The barrel race saw the competitors — mostly young girls — race between obstacles arranged throughout the area.

The jumping events often raise the most eyebrows. With a horse held between their legs, the riders cleared Olympic-height hurdles.

Rebecca Whitman, Mirabelle’s mother, said she was shocked by the skill on display at the event.

“Some of the athleticism that these girls have is insane,” the Wisconsin native said. “The final height at our competition was 4-foot-1 at the high jump. We had a girl jumping over something that came up to her forehead.”

Coming to America

The hobby horse hoofprint is growing throughout the world. More and more events have cropped up recently, often attached to more traditional equestrian competitions.

Tryon International, an equestrian resort in North Carolina, claims it hosted the first organized American hobby horse event in 2017. They host the competitions twice a year and face “near-riots” when they threaten to cancel, according to Marketing Manager Sarah Madden.

But Tryon’s events have focused on jumps in the past, avoiding other disciplines that have become hobby horse staples overseas.

“There’s always been the longing for a championship,” Mirabelle said. “We’ve always wanted one.”

Mirabelle met two of the other organizers — 18-year-old Mica Zandstra and 14-year-old MacKenzie Carlson — through online hobby horse communities. After learning more about the top hobby horse championships in Finland, they decided the U.S. needed an event of its own. The trio, along with Mirabelle’s 10-year-old sister Liliana, got to work.

The youngsters did most of the planning and organizing on their own, until it was time to rent a venue and acquire insurance. Then, they called in the big guns: their moms.

“We needed everyone, all hands on deck for this,” said Rebecca Whitman.

The adults expected a smattering of attendees — a similar event in Chicago had just a handful of competitors.

“We ended up with more than 100 participants, definitely more than we had planned for,” Rebecca Whitman said. “It became this mega-event.”

The American championship attracted several niche celebrities in the hobby horse world, including Finland’s Rosie Mulari. The 18-year-old has made a career out of the sport, selling horses online and running camps in her native country. Her hobby horse exploits have earned her 23,000 combined followers on TikTok and Instagram.

“There has been a boom of hobby horses; there’s new people joining the community every day, especially abroad,” Mulari said. “I was really pleased to see that in the U.S., it has grown so much that we have hundreds of hobbyists going to Michigan, which is like the middle of nowhere.”

Mulari played basketball throughout her youth, but she said that hobby horse competitions are their own beast.

“I think hobby horse is even more competitive than that. The level there is quite high,” Mulari said. “There are people who get incredibly high jumps and do a very good dressage.”

The 18-year-old competes in Finnish events multiple times per month — there are dozens of hobby horse competitions in the Nordic country each year.

“But for me, it’s even more competitive when I’m abroad,” Mulari said — she’s competed in Romania, Spain and England. “If I flew 14 hours for this, I’m not going to settle for anything less than gold.”

True to her word, the social media sensation took home the top prize at the U.S. event last month. After she was crowned as the victor, Mulari’s fellow competitors showered her with praise and applause. Seeing hundreds of hobby horse fanatics band together was almost too much for the Whitmans.

“I nearly cried,” Mirabelle said. “We pulled so much work and effort and to see all those people doing it, it didn’t seem real before. It felt just like a dream.”

Social media circles

Social media is a blessing and a curse for the hobby horse community. On one hand, it allows like-minded people to find each other. Mirabelle Whitman noted that most hobby horse competitors are self-taught, taking notes and honing their skills through videos on apps like TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat.

“It’s all skyrocketed because of social media. It’s a really huge part of growing the sport internationally,” Mulari explained. “It’s the channel where you can learn, you can find friends, make contacts, learn about upcoming events, it’s a huge part of everything. Without social media, the hobby wouldn’t be in the spot that it is now.”

But as the sport spreads on social media, ridicule follows. Not everyone appreciates the skill involved.

Sarcastic commenters often ask, “Why don’t you ride real horses?” (Mulari and the Whitmans noted that they do ride real horses, but hobby horses offer an alternative when space, finances or time are an issue.)

Mulari won’t hesitate to “clap back against the haters.” Someone has to, she says.

“We are somehow in that critical space because a lot of people — especially as we’re growing abroad — are making fun of us,” Mulari said. “We have a chance to express our sport and be a role model for those younger girls and boys and non-binary people.”

The world’s sport

Though it was once seen as one of Finland’s unique and strange pastimes, the hobby horse community has gone international.

“It is really a worldwide hobby and I think children have been riding hobby horses as long as humans have been riding horses,” said Jimmy Peltola, who crafts the stuffed animals for Humma Horses. “The difference is now that it is made more seriously and more like a hobby and sport and not just as play.”

However, as Mulari notes, there are some differences between hobby horse enthusiasts in Finland and their American counterparts.

“Many people abroad and in the U.S. like to treat their horses realistically like they are living creatures, which I think is very cute. That’s very sweet of them,” Mulari said. “Finland is different, our horses don’t have attitudes in the arena.”

Though she’s encouraged by the sport’s continued international growth, Mulari said that a hobby horse World Cup or international committee is “far far away.”

“But I think that in the time span of like 10 or 20 years, it’s totally possible,” she said. “Why wouldn’t it be? It requires a lot of work, but I think we can get there somehow.”

A U.S. hobby horse organization would help accelerate that process. North Carolina’s Tryon International said they hope to start an official association to grow the sport and spread awareness in 2025.

In the Midwest, Mirabelle and the other U.S. championship organizers are focusing on short-term goals. The teenagers are heading back to school, but they’re already thinking about the next U.S. Championship.

“We can confidently say that we would really like to run another one,” Mirabelle said. “Fingers crossed.”