Horses are beautiful and majestic creatures. We’ve seen pictures and videos of them prancing, galloping, and running across open pastures and hills. We’ve seen them racing and competing in rodeos, and we’ve seen them perform tricks with their riders standing on their backs and hanging from stirrups. I’ll bet you’ve never seen one dance though, quite the way this one can.

Dressage is a sport in the horse world that isn’t as well-known as some of them listed above. While many of us have never heard of the sport, it is actually a world-wide event with people from around the globe taking place in the competitions.

The sport is somewhat like a dance competition for horses and judges base their scores on the paces, impulsion, submissions, and rider’s effectiveness over a series of carefully planned movements. Dressage competitions are a highly competitive, high stakes sport to those who participate.

Andreas Helgstrand and his beautiful horse named Blue Hors Matine spent hours and hours training and preparing for their performance, and as you will see in the video, they nailed it. With their team watching, you can tell they even agree that the duo are performing very well.

The event they are competing in is called freestyle dressage and they dance to a wide variety of music. As the beats change, so does the horse’s pacing and prancing. While some of the moves and music are typical of a dressage routine, some of it is not. Watch the video below and see if you can tell what is the unique part of the routine.

The routine garners fantastic marks from the judges, and you can tell by Helgstrand’s smile at the end that he’s pleased with how his horse performed. It truly is amazing what this horse has learned to do.