Lipizzaners
- The white dancing horses of the Lipica
A
living legend from Lipica
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Lipicanec
(pron. lipitsanets) showing his paces
The
Herd of Lipizzaners on the pastures of Lipica
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The Lipizzaners are
perhaps the best-known horse breed in the world, their
history a unique tale. The story began 400 years ago.
It happened thus:
In the year 1572 the emperor of Austria-Hungary decreed
that the Spanish Riding School established at the court
should have an assured and regular supply of horses bred
as showy carriage horses, for riding and dressage training.
He entrusted the task of establishing a stud farm to the
Archduke Karl who governed over the Slovenian territories.
The horses should be beautiful, have proud bearing, and
be graceful, strong, sweet-tempered, long living and intelligent.
The Archduke brought stallions of the Andalusian, Barb
and Berber breed from Spain, the home of the famous Spanish
Riding School, and installed them in the Lipica stud farm.
There they were bred to selected imported mares and the
local Karst horses, which were white in colour, small,
slow to mature and extremely tough. It is believed that
it was this breed that gave the Lipizzaners of today the
high stepping gait.
The stud farm prospered during the next 200 years, providing
graceful, even paced carriage and saddle horses for the
Vienna court and the riding school. By 1880 there were
341 Lipizzan horses at Lipica stud farm. Arabian stallions
were added to the breed in the 18th century
and Napoleon, when he briefly gained control of Lipica
bred his Arab stallion Vesir to Lipizzaners.
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It was in the
19th century that the six stud lines, among them the Arabian
line were founded with the six stallions, which established
the best qualities for which the Lipizzaner became known
and are valued to present time: stamina, grace, good looks,
intelligence, longevity, good nature and a talent for dancing.
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Performance
at Lipica |
The survival of
the stud farm and the breed over 400 years is in many ways
extraordinary. In the three major wars, which swept across
the region, horses had to flee to a safe place, out of reach
of armies that needed horses. During Napoleonic wars, 1st
World War and again during the 2nd World War horses were
moved and, yet some horses were always returned to Lipica
to continue the line in the original stud farm.
Austro-Hungarian Empire broke up during at the end of the
1st WW, and Lipica came under Italy. At the end of 2nd World
War the borders were moved again and Lipica became part
of Yugoslavia or more precisely, part of Slovenia, the northern
republic of the federal state of Yugoslavia. General Patton
now allocated the major parts of the herd that had been
moved to a safer area for the duration of the war, to Austria
and Italy. Only 13 horses were returned to the home stud
farm. However the breeding at Lipica went on. Several additional
Lipizzaner stallions and mares were acquired and the herd
was again built up. |
In 1991 Slovenia broke away from Yugoslavia and became an
independent state. The Lipizzaner horses were declared the
indigenous Slovenian breed and a national treasure. The
government consequently approached the European Commission
with an application to protect the breed as the indigenous
Slovenian breed and the Lipica stud farm as their original
home. The Geneva based World Intellectual Protection Organization
(WIPO) was approached with the claim for the copyright of
the emblem of Lipica, which has been traditionally branded
on its horses.
Other countries that breed the Lipizzaners have found this
unacceptable. They maintain that it is the genetic principle
rather than geography which governs the breeding lines.
Austria, in its role as the
continuing guardian of the great Spanish Riding School
of Vienna, has laid a particular claim to the Lipizzaner,
the wondrous dancing stallion, that has been likened to
Pegasus without wings. Slovenia however lays claim to
its name, home and cradle. Slovenian poet Edvard Kocbek
has written a poem The
Lipizzaners, with a lighthearted and humourous perspective
on the importance of Lipicanec of Lipica to
Slovenians.
Aleksandra
Ceferin, Thezaurus (Melbourne 2000)
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