West Family Travels

When I grew up in the 70s in London Ontario, every Sunday night we would watch the Incredible World of Disney. One of the movies we watched was The Miracle of the White Stallions. It was a movie of how the Director of the Spanish riding school here in Vienna saved the beautiful white lippizan stallions from the Nazis. I don't remember many if at all any of the details but it made an impression on me so I decided that if I ever travelled to Vienna, I would attend a performance. Now because it is the summer, the majority of the cultural events are not happening. No opera, symphony, ballet- nothing. Vienna in August is a cultural waste land. When I realized that there was one performance of the Lippizan stallions while we were in Vienna, I snapped us up some tickets. I was very excited to be going. Now I must confess that growing up in London Ontario my family was not part of the horse crowd. In fact my family was probably the opposite of the horse crowd. My exposure to horses was very limited. My family would have been best classified as the Merry go round crowd. My exposure to horses exponentially increased when I moved out West. The rodeo at Pile of bone days was spectacular. I enjoyed it so much I would go 2 or 3 times. I would even go to rodeos in small towns. I remember going to a rodeo in Val Marie Saskatchewan. That was exciting as the rodeo was in a little hockey rink and from where we were sitting one could almost touch the bucking horses and bulls. I must have seen the RCMP ride several times. What showmanship. I was really pumped for the Lippizan stallions. They were known as the best of the best and I knew this would be a highlight of the trip. I didn't want to ruin the surprise for the girls so I just told them that we were in for a great adventure. We arrived early for the performance as we had general seating. I was quite surprised when the girls had no idea who the Lippizan stallions were however their enthusiasm increased when we got into the riding hall. It was beautiful. The school riding hall was actually part of the Hofburg palace. Baroque architecture very ornately painted. Chanaliers. Their excitement increased as we waited in the heat for the performances to start. I knew of course that they weren't going to start with the best horses first but still they were going to be Lippizans. The performance started and it was apparent that this wasn't the usual type of horse spectacle that I had grown used to on the prairies because it was dressage. I hadn't really given much thought to the Olympic sport of dressage. Aren't all Olympic sports supposed to be exciting.I didn't even know it was an Olympic sport. I would define dressage as horses who have been taught to walk in an unusual fashion. It is what Tai Chi is to the martial arts world. They had trained every last piece of wildness and excitement and adventure out of these animals. At first it was just a little boring. This was the antithesis of a rodeo. As the performance progressed it gradually became more interesting as the level of difficulty increased but it still wouldn't touch the excitement of a rodeo. Still we were able to see the horses perform what I would describe as the floating horse maneuver. I have no idea what the name of it is in German. It is what the Lippizans are known for. The horses do a double kick with their legs and for maybe a second or two they appear to float in the air. I have seen videos of the Lippizan stallions performing this maneuver but it was pretty impressive to see it in person. The girls were very impressed by the performance. We left the hall for the mid day heat. We ate our lunch on the steps of an unused wing of the Hofburg palace before retreating to the air conditioning of our rental. In the afternoon we ventured out to a very busy Viennese outdoor pool but given that it was Sunday and 35 degrees one would have been surprised if it hadn't been busy. I think that I will have to watch the Disney movie again as after seeing the Lippizan stallions in person, it is difficult to know how these animals would have been of any benefit to the Nazis as all they appeared good for was dressage which in my mind wasn't going to win any wars. Give me a horse like the Lone Ranger's horse Silver any day over a Lippizan stallion.Read more