Equestrian sports have been a part of the Olympic Games since 1900, but there have been calls for them to be culled from the event due to their expense. Add the fact that outsiders view horse sports as elitist and you get a share of detractors who don’t watch or even understand dressage, show jumping or eventing.

US Equestrian (the governing body of the sport in the United States) understands this challenge and in an effort to broaden the sport’s appeal, worked with global music superstar Megan Thee Stallion. The three-time Grammy winning recording artist is featured in a new commercial for NBC, the American network with broadcast rights to the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, which begin July 26, 2024, in Paris, France.

A film crew shooting in an arena.

A portion of the commercial shoot took place in Ashley Holzer’s covered arena in Florida.
(US Equestrian photo)

The promotional spot finds Megan performing during “Thee Paris Olympics” at the Palace of Versailles – the host of next summer’s Olympic and Paralympic equestrian competitions – with U.S. High Performance dressage horses (and riders) as her backup dancers. Shot at Canadian/American Olympic medalist Ashley Holzer’s farm in Wellington, Florida, the “team” included Holzer on Valentine, Katherine Bateson-Chandler on Grand Charmeur, Anna Buffini on Beach Boy, Susie Dutta on Don Design DC, Laura Graves on SenSation FOD, and Kasey Perry-Glass on Heartbeat W.P. According to Holzer, their part was filmed in approximately three hours, but from the arrival of the crew to the final clean-up took three days. The shoot comprised of the horse-and-rider combos riding individually and as an ensemble, performing piaffe, passage and canter pirouettes.

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