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BALLROOM DANCING FOR HORSES THE SPANISH RIDING SCHOOL By Jasper Winn In 1562, Maximilian II imported Iberian horses into Austria. Like the rest of the Hapsburgs, the emperor was an ardent enthusiast for Spanish etiquette at his court; indeed he believed that even the royal mounts should ‘know how to conduct themselves.’ The idea of the horse as a sort of equine courtier was born. This was the time of the Renaissance and the classical age was studied as inspiration for culture and, indeed, horsemanship. Rediscovered writings on equitation from almost two millennia before, those of Pliny and Xenophon amongst them, became the building blocks for a classical style of training and riding. Maximilian II founded an Imperial stud at Kladrub in Bohemia, whilst in 1580 his brother started another stud of Spanish horses at Lipizza, (now in Slovenia, but then a part of Austria). The best of the horses were brought to Vienna for training.

Today the traditions of the Spanish Riding School are built on those early ideas and on their subsequent refinements. The flourishing arts world of the Baroque era in the second half of the 17th century produced sculptures and paintings as well as elaborate ballets or ‘carousels.’ The latter spectaculars featured horses, and the arts did much to celebrate the idealised conformation of the Lipizzaner stallion. Tradition became all, and so the riders of today still wear the tailcoats, yellow leather breeches, high boots and bi-corn hats of the early 19th century ‘empire’ uniform. And the home of the Spanish Riding School is still within the confines of the Hofburg – the Imperial Palace – at the very heart of Vienna. The present building, the Winter Riding School, was built in the 1730s for use both as an arena for performances of horsemanship before the court, and as a ballroom and a concert space for Beethoven, amongst others, to perform in.

Through the centuries the school has had to weather the fortunes of Austria’s history, with many of the severest threats to its continuation coming in the last hundred years. Lipizza, the historic stud of the Lipizzaners, was within a region of the Austro-Hungarian Empire ceded to Italy after WWI, and now a part of Slovenia, and at the time much of the breeding stock was rapidly moved to Piber in Austria’s own Styria province, where the school’s stud is now situated.

Following WWII Vienna, already greatly ruined by bombing, was occupied by American, British, French and Russian troops who divided up the running of the city between them. In those uncertain times the Spanish Riding School successfully appealed directly to America’s General George S Patton, a 1912 Stockholm Olympics equestrian competitor and commander-in-chief of the American occupation, requesting to be allowed to continue the school’s centuries of tradition. The American occupying force assured the school’s safety of the horses and the school.

Today the Spanish Riding School still teaches and performs Renaissance haute école in a tradition that has been passed by practical instruction from one generation of riders to the next through nearly 450 years.

I met Arthur Kottas-Heldenberg, the Oberbereiter with overall responsibility for selecting and training the Spanish Riding School’s horses and riders, on a chill November morning in the offices of the Winter Riding School before one of the daily winter training sessions. Whilst we talked lines of saddled Lipizzaners were been led into the school from the stables on the other side of Augustinerstrasse. Groups of horses had been exercising since seven that morning, whilst tourists who had been queuing outside the school for an hour or more had finally been let in. Several hundred spectators lined the high galleries overlooking the 180 feet by 60 feet of the arena. I sat in solitary splendor below, at horse height, with Herr Kottas-Heldenberg beside me to explain the history and traditions of the school, and to relate them to today’s training and performance.

Kottas-Heldenberg’s future in the Spanish Riding School must have seemed pre-destined. “My parents had the oldest private riding school in Vienna and I had my first pony when I was two and a half years old,” he told me. In front of us eight young Lipizzaners, many still dark coloured, were being worked-in around the perimeter of the arena. “I started here when I was 16, and have been with the school for 40 years. Those of us who are here are horse people from head to toe…we live for the horses.”

The Spanish Riding School’s performing horses are all stallions, and all bred at the stud at Piber. Potential school horses are picked out as yearlings, their numbers further whittled down when they reach two, and a final selection made of the remaining colts at three years old. These, the very best, are then brought to Vienna and broken at three and half in November or December. For the first three weeks the youngsters are exercised free in the arena before lunging with long side reins starts. “After the horse has good balance on the circle we lunge them with a young rider, and then we begin to ride the horses in groups in the school, like you see here.” The youngsters were trotting on a relaxed rein around the school.

“The classical way is for the horse to tell you how fast you can train him. We always say ‘take your time, but don’t waste your time.’” Kottas-Heldenberg studied his pupils as they rode before him. “A horse and a rider have to be ready in the head and in the body before you can do anything with them.” In the Spanish Riding School ‘anything’ includes ‘schools on the ground;’ half-passes, change of leg, piaffe, passage, pirouettes and levade. The ‘schools above the ground’, the famous ‘airs,’ are courbettes and capriole. But the ‘anything,’ more importantly, emphasizes the horse doing all these exercises calmly and with pleasure.

To become a Spanish Riding School rider takes between eight and twelve years. Like the young stallions, trainee riders are only taken on to fill places in the school as they become available. The total number of riders in the school is 16, five of whom are trainees. Each experienced rider has from five and seven horses under him. The Oberbereiter spoke gravely; “It is not so difficult to start in the school, but it is difficult to stay here because we need, really, just the best…the best horses and the best riders.”

Trainees are instructed by the bereiters, the highest level of rider, and through riding the experienced horses. Trainees then become probationary riders and must undertake the training of a young horse up to performance standard in haute école. If this first partnership doesn’t work out, the probationary rider is given a second chance with another horse. Kottas-Heldenberg looked stern; “But, if you can’t take this second chance then you have to leave the school…there is no third chance.” But passing this practical test and a theory exam elevates probationary riders to berieter level, able to pass onto new recruits and new horses the traditions in their turn.

Each of the riders trotting around the school carried a rough birch switch as schooling whip, its appearance of having been plucked from a hedge at variance with the smart formality of their costumes. “Yes, they are just birch twigs …it’s a tradition for the trainees to go in January to the Vienna Woods to cut them. It’s a very strong tradition, because this simple birch is a symbol of …” Kottas-Heldenberg hunted for a word in English, before finally asking an unmounted rider to fetch him a dictionary. He leafed through the pages. Then; “Ah! Here, beschieden…yes, ‘modest,’ - so it is a symbol that we must be modest.”

We seemed to be talking in terms of some kind of equestrian Zen. Kottas-Heldenberg agreed, “The goal is harmony between the horse and rider. This is everything. If you see somebody dancing or skiing and it looks easy, then it is well done. It is the same with riding.”

We paused to watch as the young horses left the school and another eight horses entered. Tradition decrees that there are always eight in the school at one time and that, ideally, one should be a black Lipizzaner ‘for luck.’ These were horses which had reached performance level. Effortlessly, or so it seemed, they performed the demanding gymnastics of piaffe, extended trot and flying changes, relaxing as soon as the reins were loosened. “If you want to be a good rider, I always say, you have to live twice – one lifetime is not enough,” Kottas-Heldenberg pointed out. “It’s the willingness to learn, the modesty, that is important.” He paused to ask a rider to take a horse across the school in canter, changing legs on every stride before turning back to me, “You know, a horse without a rider is still a horse, but a rider without a horse is not a rider anymore.”

The Spanish Riding School’s calendar is as fixed as all their traditions. Performances and training in Vienna run from September to the middle of December, and again from March to June. From the end of July through August the horses are on holiday, stabled in the Vienna Woods and only ridden in a relaxed fashion for exercise.

Once a year the school goes on tour to perform around the world. “If we are flying it is our practice, always, to send half of the riders and horses in one plane and half in another, that way if…” Kottas-Heldenberg left the unthinkable unsaid. This almost regal regard for the safety of the Spanish Riding School’s continuation befits an institution, which has ambassadorial status for Austria. “I talked with a diplomat once, when we were on tour, and he said, ‘do you know why your Lipizzaners are better than human ambassadors?’” The Oberbereiter smiled, “He told me, ‘it’s because they can’t talk.’”

Kottas-Heldenberg’s own performance horse, a dark stallion, nineteen years old and one of the school’s stars, was being ridden by a probationary rider. There were a few words of quiet but firm tuition as he passed in front of us. “Good, good! See, don’t sit on the saddle, don’t sit in the saddle, but sit in the horse.”

To quote from Frank Fischer’s brief history of the Spanish Riding School; ‘The kind of haute école paraded at circuses – galloping on three legs, waltzing, movements which have nothing to do with the natural sequence of walking, trotting or galloping – are eschewed by the Spanish Riding School as ‘unnatural.’ The classical leaps and paces of the Lipizza stallions are derived from the movements of young horses at play in freedom.’

Kottas-Heldenberg echoed this sentiment. “If the horse enjoys his work, then it will always have fun. You have to keep them very happy, so the horses are not thinking, ‘God, I have to come to the school again.’ No, no, if they could talk they have to say, ‘I like to do it, take me there; I’m ready.” The horse passing before us, on the other side of the barrier slowed into piaffe, enjoying the moment of suspension, and its own strength and lightness. “You know, they are still animals,” the Oberbereiter said, “and you have to remember that.”

INFORMATION BOX
Evening performances of the Spanish Riding School in the Winter Riding School in Vienna are booked out far into the future, but tickets for the morning training sessions are available at short notice from the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Agencies in Vienna can also arrange tickets for training sessions. Information on times and costs can be seen on the Spanish Riding School website; www spanische-reitschule.com

Information also available from the Austrian Tourist Board, London. Tel: + 44 207 6290461

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