Welcome to the weird and wonderful world of hobby horsing, which up until this very moment I believed was a pastime enjoyed exclusively by children. How wrong I was!



There are dozens, if not more, of adult hobby horsers jumping over obstacle courses with homemade horses at any given moment, engaging in what is described as a “psuedo sport” despite the fact it looks incredibly similar to high jumping, an actual sport.


Take the girl in the video above, doing a fantastic job of vaulting herself over the obstacle all while tightly gripping her fake horse — it’s legitimately impressive, arguably more impressive than simply making a horse do the jumps for you.



The hobby horse discourse can be traced back to people making fun of another hobby horse who posted a somewhat dramatic TikTok video about how she was left on the verge of passing out and couldn’t breathe after completing her “dressage routine,” which consisted of prancing around on her hobby horse.



While her dressage routine doesn’t look particularly arduous, the kind of jumping being done by the first girl definitely does, and she has an entire Instagram page full of similar videos. According to her bio, her record height is 130 centimeters without a hobby horse, and 127 centimeters with one, leading many to ask why she was wasting her time with hobbyhorsing. As one Twitter user put it, “My sister in Christ, just be a pole vaulter what are you doing.”



Twitter is now divided between people who think hobby horsing is simply a hobby and that calling it a sport is insulting, and others who don’t care enough to police what it’s called or who think that some participants are clearly demonstrating enough athletic ability that would justify calling it a sport.


To the naysayers, I say: Post videos of yourselves successfully clearing 130-centimeter tall high jumps, if it’s so easy. We’re waiting!