Snoop Dogg’s enthusiastic commentary on the sporting events he loves was pop culture’s favorite part of the Olympics this year. We are hardly the first to celebrate the rapper’s unusual new place in America’s heart as the country’s favorite fan-fam, showing up in selfies with Simone Biles and members of the U.S. basketball team. But we are thrilled with how lovingly and deeply he embraced Olympic equestrian events at the 2024 Paris Games.
In case you missed it, the biggest photo op of Snoop’s equestrian Olympics occurred when Snoop donned a shadbelly and breeches, complete with half chaps and a Samshield helmet, and wents to the paddocks with Martha Stewart to feed carrots to Steffen Peters’ Suppenkasper and Endel Ots’ Zen Elite’s Bohemian. The iconic videos, available on the @usadressage Instagram and, well, all over the internet, have been celebrated, reposted, shared, and recreated by equestrians worldwide. Snoop tentatively offers Bohemian carrots and compliments the Westphalian gelding’s braids, and he dances with Suppenkasper, the KWPN gelding who became famous during Snoop’s Tokyo Olympics commentary. Further videos–you know, the ones that blew up your texts and DMs last month–show Snoop and Stewart (herself an avid equestrian) watching the dressage finals and generally wandering around with top human and equine athletes expressing the joy and awe that all us horse lovers feel watching world champion horses completing peak performance.
What makes this moment in Olympic and equestrian history so special? To us, it’s not just the sheer joy of Snoop and Martha’s field trip to the paddocks–though don’t get us wrong, we loved it for its own sake! But beyond that, it is Snoop showing up as someone who is new to the world of horses and unafraid to admit the complex range of emotions that horses evoke in him. He has said on the record that he loves horses but is afraid of them. The videos show him seeking help from Stewart and members of the U.S. Olympic team to learn how to encounter and connect with the geldings. He famously became invested in dressage after seeing Suppenkasper’s Tokyo performance. And the investment came because he saw elements of his own experience in the ring: he likened freestyle movements to his own dance moves.
In these moments, as in his 2024 dance with “Mopsie” in the paddocks and his inquiries about Bohemian’s braids, Snoop showed the equestrian world what it looks like for one particular Black man to connect with horses. As he brought his perspective to bear on grand prix dressage, his commentary invited equestrians the world over to take a step back and envision how our sport appears to the wider culture. But it also showed what happens when someone who doesn’t come from a horsey background gets interested and finds ways to have that new interest supported.
Snoop in the paddocks in Paris is a moment of visibility not just for the world to watch an incredibly successful Black rapper play with horses, but for the world to watch the complicated ways interest in horses often begins, the networks of support required to sustain it, and the courage needed to get closer. With these videos, Snoop showed countless potential horse enthusiasts what it looks like to take the first steps toward getting in the saddle, that you don’t have to be white to take those steps, and how you don’t have to — and shouldn’t — stop being your full and authentic self as you hand over your first carrots. And while we don’t think most new horse lovers should start with shadbellies and Samshields, we do love the example Snoop set here of how to get into the world of horses. We hope lots of others follow in his footsteps in the years ahead! |
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