Hobby horse championships and other weird UK sports

Could you be the first hobby horse champion?

Big news for sports fans - the very first hobby horse championships will take place in the UK this year!

The announcement from The British Show Pony Society was no April Fools' prank, with a £300 prize on offer for the winner and three different age categories for children taking part.

Many people might think of hobby horses - which are sticks with a stuffed model of a horse head on top - as just toys.

But like sports with real horses, hobby horsing categories include show jumping and dressage, with points awarded for balance and skill.

But that's not the only strange sport in the world.

Which of these weird and wonderful competitions do you think you'd enjoy? Let us know in the comments!

Quidditch UK

Like the magical Harry Potter sport, quidditch sees different teams try to score points by throwing a 'quaffle' through hoops and catching the golden snitch.

But in the real world, there's a few big differences!

Players ride their broomsticks on the ground and the quaffle is a slightly deflated volleyball. To catch the snitch - a tennis ball in a sock - the team's seeker must run after a person who has the sock attached to their shorts and grab it from them.

Bog snorkelling in Mid Wales

Bog snorkelling - an outdoor adventure where you can take part in fancy dress!

Usually people go snorkelling to see amazing creatures or wildlife in the oceans. That's not the case for this sport...

Every year, the World Bog Snorkelling Championships are held just outside Llanwrtyd Wells in Mid Wales. Those hoping for victory have to swim through a 60 metre peat bog - a muddy, wet area of land naturally made by the remains of plants - as fast as they can.

There's also a fancy dress prize for those who want to cross the finish line in style.

Cheese rolling in Gloucestershire

This sport has rolled its way all over the world, but the most famous competition happens in the English village of Brockworth. It might not sound it, but it can be quite a dangerous day!

At Cooper's Hill, people roll a big wheel of cheese down a hill and run after it. As the first one to reach the bottom wins, there's often scenes of people throwing themselves down the hill, risking injuries along the way.

Welly wanging

Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, doing their best welly wanging in New Zealand in 2018.

If you're looking for something safer to do then chase a cheese wheel down a hill, then welly wanging might just be the sport for you.

It's as simple as it sounds - throwing a wellington boot and seeing how far it can go!

There are welly chucking competitions all over the UK and around the world - who knew?

You'll need to put in some practice to beat the world record, though. This was set by welly wangers in Finland in 1996, and currently stand at 40.87m for women and 63.98m for men.