Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School, Vienna

 One of my favourite books as a teenager was Mary Stewart's "Airs above the ground"as part of the story features the Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. For some reason these horses stayed in my mind as an adult. I used to ride horses, but just simple riding, nothing such as jumping or dressage. 

My first visit to Vienna was in 1983, but somehow I missed seeing the stables of the Spanish Riding School. So when I was back in Vienna in October 2021, I was really happy to get to the stables.

Normally the horses do shows in many countries, but of course that all stopped with the covid pandemic. We were told that they really missed the crowds and having an audience. 

We were lucky as whilst we were there, a few of the horses were led out -

The Lipizzaner horses are born grey or black and the coat gradually lightens over the years, they become white after 6 - 10 years, although it is not a pure white. Only the stallions are used in Vienna’s Spanish Riding School. Read more on the history of the stallions.

In 2016 I went to the SSE arena at Wembley in London to see the 450th anniversary tour of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna. 

After visiting Vienna in 2021, I had another encounter with the Lipizzaner horses in Hungary. I was on a tour to the Lovascentrum horse centre, which is an hour's drive on the M5 southeast of Budapest. It is on the Puszta – the Great Hungarian Plain.

The blue-robe-clad Csikos (mounted horse-herdsman) perform a horse show. Note the long whip.

Firstly we watched a group of horses galloping around the enclosure. You can see the different colours indicating the different ages - 

Then we saw different carriages -

 

A man demonstrated his skill standing on two horses whilst the group galloped around -

A horse lying down whilst the handler cracks the long whip around the horse -

It was quite amazing to see a horse sitting like this -

Even the albino mule was able to sit -

Hungarian grey cattle 

We then went for a carriage ride. After that, we visited the stables -

We then saw more cattle, donkeys and mules and other animals -

It was fascinating to see the Lipizzaners in a different setting.

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UPDATE

In Dec I went to a show at the Royal Andalusian School of Equestrian Art, Jerez, Spain. This was another amazing chance to see the horses perform their dances etc.

The famous Lipizzaners are now bred especially for the Riding School at the Piber Stud Vienna. These Spanish horses are best suited to the equestrian arts. The Lipizzaners can come from other stock apart from the Andalusian.