Watch this horse dance to Santana's 'Smooth' at the Olympics
Horse dancing (also known by the far more boring name of "dressage") is one of the stranger Olympic sports, right up there with duet synchronized swimming and race walking. Like the women's gymnastics floor routines, dressage is set to music as horse and rider perform a series of complicated steps that look to the uneducated eye like a joyful little jig. Mostly this music is kind of dull. Not so for Spain's Severo Jesus Jurado Lopez, though, who on Monday broke out an instrumental version of "Smooth" by Santana (featuring Rob Thomas, of course):
It went over well with the fans:
The Chronicle of the Horse, which was live-blogging the event, broke the performance down for those of us who call this sport "horse dancing":
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Later in their routine, horse and rider transitioned to dancing to Bon Jovi's "It's My Life." While ultimately the team didn't get the gold in horse dancing, the pair certainly finished first in musical taste.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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