Day 17 Donna & The Lippizan’s

This one belongs to Donna.

For this post, I’m stepping back and letting Donna share her experience in her own voice. Horses have been woven into Donna’s life since childhood, and today’s visit to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna was something she has carried on her bucket list for decades. We booked this excursion months ago — long before we ever boarded the plane in Hartford — because I knew this was Donna’s day.

Here are Donna’s words, exactly as she wrote them:

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“Our cruise on the Danube River has come to an end, here in Vienna. Our last full day was spent with the Lippizzan horses at the Spanish Riding School. I was surprised that the school is pretty much in the center of the very busy city of Vienna. We started with the 70 minute performance. The riders showed off the training of their mounts, the young 4-6 year old horses with walk, trot, canter. The older, more experienced horses and riders performing the airs above the ground, Levade, Courbette, Capriole. My personal favorite was the rider showing the trust that he has with his mount by long reins, snuggled up to the hindquarters of his steed, moving through trot and canter with ease, walking behind his partner. Yes, walking though the horse is cantering. Performing Piaffe, Passage and Pirouettes effortlessly. The performance ended with the Quadrille, eight stallions with riders performing intricate maneuvers, weaving in and out and between each other. Fantastic.

After the Lippizans performance, Paul Gruhn and I searched for a cafe for hot chocolate. It was hard to find a place that didn’t have a line out the door. After a zig and zag down a side street we found one.

Later in the afternoon we went back to the SRS for a behind the scenes tour. The stallions in the outer courtyard were shy and busy eating their lunch. Inside the 1730s stables, we toured the tack room which smelled deliciously of leather. There was close to 80 saddles in the larger of the 2 tack rooms.

The horses inside were also eating but we were able to see them through the wrought iron bars of their stalls. They were magnificent.

This was a day that I will always remember.”

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As her husband — a man who has watched Donna muck stalls, lift hay bales, brush down her horse Ryan, and carry a lifetime’s worth of love for animals — I can tell you: this day meant the world to her. Vienna may not know it, but it gave her a gift today. And getting to stand beside her while she experienced it? That was a gift to me, too.

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