We couldn’t pass up a story that combined Genghis Khan, Hannibal’s elephants, the Nazi SS, General Patton, and of course horses. They all come together for the tale of Vienna’s dancing Lipizzan stallions.
Spain’s Vilano horses were well known for their strength as long ago as the days of Julius Caesar, and the horses carried Hannibal’s warriors across the Alps (alongside those famous elephants). Then someone thought to cross Vilanos with the barb horses (whose ancestors may have carried Genghis Khan and his hordes from Asia). The result was the Andalusian.
In 1580, Charles (Karl), Archduke of Vienna, founded a stud farm at Lipica (also called Lipizza), a village in Slovenia close to the Italian border. There, using the Spanish Andalusians, the archduke created strong, graceful horses that are born dark but whose coats gradually lighten to a brilliant, snowy white—the Lipizzan breed.
At about the same time, Austrian royalty founded the Spanish Riding School in Vienna to teach classical horsemanship. The school used and bred Lipizzans exclusively.
By the 1600s, Lipizzans were a must-have for both the European aristocracy and the military. The horses were fast and strong, but it was their ability to leap and kick that made them essential battlefield companions.
Enemy ground troops feared the Lipizzans’ powerful kicks—called “airs above the ground.” These airs included a courbette (where horses reared on their hind legs and jumped) and a croupade (a leap that had the horses tuck their legs in midair). But the capriole was the most dazzling feat: a horse leapt with its forelegs drawn under its chest, and then, in midair, it kicked out violently with its hind legs.
Over the next 300 years, the Lipizzans survived some famous assaults on Austria, including attacks by Napoleon’s armies and World War I. It was World War II, though, that nearly defeated them. In 1945, Germany was losing the war, and the Allies were bombing Vienna. Hoping to save his horses, Colonel Alois Podhajsky, the director of the Spanish Riding School, relocated all of the stallions to St. Martin in upper Austria, 200 miles away. There, Podhajsky had the horses put on a performance for U.S. general George Patton, a horse lover and equestrian. (Patton even competed in the equestrian event in the 1912 Olympics.) Podhajsky asked Patton to make the stallions protected wards of the U.S. Army, and he eventually agreed.
The mares, though, were still in danger. The Nazis had taken control of the Lipizzan mares and foals and moved them to a stud farm in Hostau, Czechoslovakia. An American soldier, Colonel Charles H. Reed of the Second Cavalry Brigade, was looking for Allied prisoners held at Hostau when he learned of the horses’ whereabouts. (The information came from a captured German general who worried that the Soviet troops might destroy the Lipizzans or ship them to the Soviet Union.) Thus began “Operation Cowboy,” the American army’s effort to save the Lipizzans and liberate Hostau.
On April 28, 1945, the Americans entered the town, and according to Reed, it was a “fiesta,” rather than a battle. Allied prisoners lined the streets, and surrendering German troops welcomed the American soldiers with salutes and an honor guard. As for the horses, 375 Lipizzans were rescued—as well as 100 Arabians, 200 Thoroughbreds, and 600 Russian horses. The U.S. Army protected all of them when Nazi troops attacked Hostau one last time. But by May 7, the war in Europe was over, and arrangements were made to return the Lipizzans to the Republic of Austria.
Over the years, General Patton got credit for rescuing the Lipizzans. A 1963 Disney movie called Miracle of the White Stallions emphasized the St. Martin performance, and according to Col. Reed, Patton ordered the rescue of the mares in Czechoslovakia himself. But Patton maintained that he had little to do with the horses’ rescue and even thought the display at St. Martin was odd. In his autobiography, Patton wrote,
It struck me as rather strange that, in the midst of a world at war, some 20 young and middle-aged men in great physical condition . . . had spent their entire time teaching a group of horses to wiggle their butts and raise their feet . . . Much as I like horses, this seemed to me wasted energy.
No matter how it happened, though, it’s thanks to the U.S. Second Cavalry that one of the best-known European horse breeds still performs at Austria’s Spanish Riding School.
•The Lipizzan is a long-lived horse—30 to 35 years is its average life span.
•Lipizzans are usually born black and, over a period of 6 to 10 years, slowly go gray until they turn pure white. Occasionally, Lipizzan foals are born white, but that doesn’t happen often. (In the days of the Hapsburg dynasty, the white colts pulled royal vehicles.)
•Lipizzans are a rare breed. Today, there are only about 3,000 registered worldwide.