Jousting is no walk in the park, but it’s a lot more thrilling: ‘Everyone wants to see themselves in something like this’

A torrential morning downpour had soaked Deadpools and dashing knights alike, but the seats were packed at the Sleepy Hollow Ren Faire for the main event: the joust, produced by Iowa jousting company JoustEvolution. Two rows of wooden seats and a set of metal bleachers were filled shoulder to shoulder with cheerers and jeerers as horses careened across the field — at a trot, since the ground was still wet — and the armored riders lowered their lances. 

The resonant crack of lance hitting shield echoed across the muddy alleys, and lance tips pinwheeled as the two surging knights passed each other. This is the 20th year that JoustEvolution, owned by Kevin and Amy Coble, has put on the joust, and has yet to settle into a routine.

“We like doing different shows,” Kevin told me, the both of us huddled underneath a sopping tent after the first joust of the day had to be canceled. “We could do the same show over and make it perfect because we just keep doing it, but it wouldn’t be fun. It would seem more like a job thing. I don’t want a real job.”

Kevin’s jousting career started in the ’90s. He was a hockey coach, and one day a couple of his students skipped practice to go to the Renaissance fair. 

“And my reaction was, what is a Renaissance fair? The following weekend, I decided to go and saw the jousting, fell in love with it … And then the following year when they were getting ready to come back, bills were paid, [I was] single, and what the hell. And that was 30 years ago. So I’ve been doing it for a very long time.” 

He started with the original American jousting troupe, Hanlon-Lees Action Theater, a heavily scripted and theatrical style of performance. He went from there to New Riders of the Golden Age, which had a more realistic and grounded style. After a producer offered him assistance starting a Midwestern troupe, Kevin founded JoustEvolution in 2006. He sought to blend elements of the previous troupes he’d been a part of to create something new — an evolution that combined hard-hitting action and theatricality.

The Cobles typically act as the marshals of the joust — the character who rides out, introduces the knights, expresses fruitless disapproval at the shady tactics of the bad guys, makes final rulings, and guides the flow and timing of the show. Among the knights are Sir Daniel the Phoenix, a fire-wielding, braggadocious knight whose personality is a complete 180 from his slightly shy off-arena personality. Then there’s Sir William, a relative newcomer who punctuates his strikes with shakes of his hockey-flow mane, Sir Joseph, a hulking heel in heavy armor, and Sir Lucas.

Some stuff is consistent, of course. There’s always the tilts, the runs with the horses, the lances (usually made from breakaway balsa wood rather than solid wood), the hand-to-hand combat, good guys vs. bad guys and, for JoustEvolution at least, a healthy handful of comedy and anachronistic theatrics. At one point in the joust I attended, a squire happened across a Michael Jackson-style fedora, put it on, became “possessed,” did a few dance moves, then threw it from his head and scurried off. Knights enter to blasted clips from “Immigrant Song,” or the more bagpipe-heavy parts of Dropkick Murphy songs, flexing and grimacing like pro wrestlers. 

Verisimilitude to the history of jousting — which in reality was a brutal, deadly sport that often killed or maimed competitors and may have been a contributing factor in Henry VIII’s erratic behavior — is secondary to ensuring audiences have a good time.

Creating that good time entails a lot of setup and, of course, a lot of armor. Especially in the blazing heats of summer jousts, strapping on 80 to 100 pounds of metal can feel “like wearing a sweatshirt inside an oven,” Kevin said. Even though JoustEvolution has swapped the traditional padded gambeson for sweat-wicking Under Armour, temperatures inside the uniform can reach up to 140 degrees on hot days. Add in the running, riding, swinging swords and hauling lances and shields, and you’ve got a hardcore endurance sport. But most elite athletes don’t have to recall and improvise dialogue.

Injuries are common, Kevin said. “When a new person says, ‘Hey, I want to joust,’ my first thing is, well, you will get hurt. It’s not if, it’s when and how bad. You’re falling off a moving horse … So we practice as much as we can, but unknown factors always jump in. We say the million-to-one things happen on a regular basis.” 

The current JoustEvolution team is a close-knit group, some having been with the group as long as 17 years. There’s a jock-y sort of camaraderie, a rough and ready attitude, a cheerful willingness to joke about wounds and swap injury stories.

“We … came in that morning and I told everybody I had a weird dream that on the field, everyone was trying to kill me,” Kevin said, sharing one of his yarns with me. “And everyone laughed. And then during the show, Daniel the Phoenix, he uses fire and the wind was blowing — and blows fire right into my face.” Bewildered, he staggered towards his other opponent and blocked a blow from a mallet. But the mallet broke through Kevin’s shield and slammed into his head, sending a gout of blood down his face. 

“So I’m like, Oh my God, they are trying to kill me. And then a little kid at the fence said, ‘That blood doesn’t look as real as the other show!’”

While the human hazards are a source of humor, the safety of their steeds is paramount for many jousters. Amy Coble is the horse trainer for JoustEvolution, and when she’s on the field she’s typically atop her own horse, a gorgeous black Friesian she’s been riding for 16 years. 

“They know show days, too,” she said. “And they love it… And if they didn’t want to do it, we couldn’t force them, because they’re a big animal. And [my Friesian will] be back there, and her music starts. And at times, I’ll have to hold her back, because she’ll rear up and want to just go out there.”

The jousting horses are typically draft horses like Clydesdales or Belgians — gentle giants with a relatively easy temperament and the ability to carry a full-grown man in 100-plus-pound armor at speed. They’re trained for the overstimulating environment through positive reinforcement, rather than the sensory-deprivation tactics of the Middle Ages such as blinders or bells around the neck. For example, a horse will be exposed to the sound of a sword hitting a shield and rewarded every time it doesn’t flinch or react. One Belgian, Maximus, has grown so accustomed to the sound that the clank doesn’t make him flinch, but prompts him to walk over and put his nose to the shield for treats. 

“Mechanical things do what they’re supposed to,” Kevin said. “And that’s not really a partnership. The animal accepts you and listens to you. If he questions you, and he doesn’t think you know what you’re doing, you’re going to have a lot of trouble.”

The match I attended was the last in the day, so as per tradition, it ended with a fight to the “death.” After a few rounds of dramatics and skulduggery, ostensible good guy Sir William, over the marshal’s pleas for mercy, brutally slit the throat of bad guy Sir Daniel (with the help of a hidden blood bag), booed thoroughly by my section. 

Judas the Unforgiven (Kevin), as the marshal, reluctantly announced Sir William the winner. Immediately afterwards, the dead knights were brought miraculously back to life by an audience chant of “I DO believe in fairies! I DO believe in fairies!” while Sir Daniel came to with the application of the enchanted fedora.

All took a bow to the applause of the audience. It felt like an apropos summation of the tension of JoustEvolution: enough genuine brutality and violence to satisfy thrillseekers, swiftly followed up by a friendly bit of comedy and reassurance to the youngest audience members. 

“One thing we’ve noticed in the last few years is more families, Mom, Dad, two kids, and the neighbors with their kids,” Kevin said. “Everyone wants to see themselves in something like this. So we try to make sure that there’s enough for everyone.”  

This article was originally published in Little Village’s October 2026 issue.