Tomorrow is International Rabbit Day, so today we’re going to celebrate the world of rabbit show jumping.
Also known as rabbit dressage, it’s an actual sport and it just might be the cutest sport.
It started in the 1970s in Sweden, as a sort of smaller-scale version of show jumping for horses.
Bunnies jump over little fences and cross bridges and move across see-saws and so forth.
Unlike horses, they don’t have riders, though they are typically led through courses either by commands or on a leash.
There are time limits, so they have to move quick, though bunnies that clearly don’t want to participate, or lose interest, just hop away and let the next competitor take a turn.
Depending on the event, judges can award prizes on performance, agility, jump height and/or jump length.
Human trainers say the bunnies benefit from the exercise and the mental focus they have to have to make it through these courses.
The obstacles are often designed to play to a rabbit’s strengths: some courses are crooked, and bunnies often zig-zag when they run because it can confuse predators.
And of course, there’s a lot of hopping and jumping, which is what they do best.
The sport has been growing slowly but steadily over the decades; there are now rabbit hopping clubs and competitions here in the US as well as across much of Europe, Canada and Japan.
Though the powerhouse countries appear to be Sweden and Denmark.
According to the Wall Street Journal, trainers there have world-class show jumping facilities, and some of them pay for life insurance policies on their champion bunnies.
Starting tomorrow in Nevada, it’s the Genoa Candy Dance.
Back in 1919, the community organized the Candy Dance as a fundraiser to buy electric streetlights.
Then it became an annual event when they realized they needed to pay for electricity to run those streetlights.
Rabbit, Run Is an Exhortation Oft Heard in England Now (Wall Street Journal)
