From the archives: This story was last updated in June 2019.
For the Kessler family in San Antonio, Texas, horses aren’t just pretty animals that they ride from time to time; they’re a way of life. Kessler’s daughters don’t just wear cowgirl clothes; they’re cowgirls at heart.But that doesn’t stop them from being kids and loving to get down with the latest dance crazes. So these amazing girls have not only managed to learn the moves themselves, but they’ve taught their best animal friends to dance too!
These girls have been around horses their whole lives and are just as comfortable riding them as any seasoned cowboy would be. But the girls also like to bring in their favorite music around the horses, and that’s where it all started.
One day, mom Melanie went out to the arena where the girls were hanging out with the horses and couldn’t believe what she saw! Her girls put on the hit track “Watch Me (Whip/Nae Nae)” by the teen rapper Silentó and started to do the dance moves that went along with it. Sure enough, when the music started, not only did the girls get down, the horse did too!
It swayed from side to side, lifting its front legs, even bobbing its head up and down in time with the music and the girls. Melanie Kessler was amazed! She shared the video on Facebook and wrote, “Actually horse doesn’t do it all day and night long only when that song plays and girls dance w HER.”
When one commenter asked if the horse was “weaving” or shuffling its legs out of boredom from being the corral, Melanie replied, “No, I’ve never seen horse do it and I for sure don’t know how to dance, the girls got her to do it.” As she said, the horse gets ridden all the time by her oldest daughter, who “jumped up on her and rode her off right after video.”
While Melanie’s girls trained the horse to dance to Silentó, that wasn’t the only dance mania they got her in on. A YouTube video called “Dancing Horse Got Moves” shows Melanie’s oldest daughter practicing another craze, “Hit the Quan” by iLoveMemphis, which also came out in 2016.
Once again, when the music comes on, the horse is keeping right up with the rhythm, bobbing its head back and forth and lifting its legs in time, sort of. Even when Melanie’s daughter forgets some of the moves and has to wait to catch up, the horse just keeps dancing away.
In fact, as amazing as Melanie’s daughter’s horse is, it isn’t the only one of its kind. Horses in the wild might not dance to the top of the pop charts, but they definitely love to jump as part of their wild, playful nature.
Horse trainers in Andalucia, in the south of Spain, and Vienna, Austria, where the Lippanzer horses were bred, have managed to teach their horses incredibly intricate moves that resemble those of classical ballet dancers, such as the pirouette and the passage. These horses are specially bred, broken in, and trained over many years. The riders, too, have to go through intense training to be allowed to work with these special horses.
While the Kesslers’ horse is just a mare that’s been trained to the classic Western riding style, she certainly can move in a pretty impressive way!
