> What interests me about this Finnish subculture is that it's perfectly cloned the "horse culture", just without any actual horses. It's very close to a cargo cult. Possibly Finland is too cold to have a regular horse culture?

I assumed this was why the hobbyhorse culture was female -- whatever the reasons are for horses to be a female interest, hobbyhorses are an imitation and necessarily target the same demographic.

Horses are expensive; it seems natural to me that enthusiasts who don't have real horses might be drawn to an imitation.