by Jane Kendall
When we finished and bowed—to General Patton instead of the emperor—everyone went wild! The generals clapped and clapped. The soldiers, the big strong boys from America, yelled and stomped their feet and put their fingers in their mouths and whistled like steam engines. I heard one soldier with freckles and red hair say, “Those are the smartest horses I ever did see.” I had to bow four times. When everyone was finally quiet, the Colonel dismounted and made a speech, thanking the Americans for honoring us with their presence. Then he asked for their help: for us, and for the Federal Stud.
I did not know then—how could I?—that although the Lipizzaners of Vienna had found refuge, the Lipizzaners of Piber had not. The Nazis had taken them from Styria to a town called Hostau, in the north in Czechoslovakia. When they started to lose the war and ran out of food for the horses, they set them loose. They drove them into the mountains of Czechoslovakia and left them there. All the gentle mares and the proud stallions, driven into the wilderness to fend for themselves.
It’s a good thing I didn’t know this until later, for I never would have been able to sleep for worrying. But General Patton did help. He sent a fleet of small airplanes up over the mountains to see where the horses had gone. Then he found soldiers who had grown up on ranches in Montana and Wyoming, cowboys from the great American West, and had them round up those horses and bring them back. It took days. I am ashamed to say that many of the stallions kicked and bit and behaved as if they had no manners. They didn’t want to be loaded into trucks by men they had never seen, but the soldiers didn’t give up. Those wonderful American boys rescued more than two hundred Lipizzaners.
The horses were brought to St. Martin so the Colonel could look them over and make sure they were healthy. The stallions were put into one paddock, the mares into another. And one day when Anton was taking me for a little exercise, just on a rope and bridle to walk the kinks out of my legs, I saw the mares.
They looked more like wild horses than the finely bred mares of Piber. Their manes and tails were snarled and tangled with burrs and brambles, and they were so thin you could count their ribs. As they milled about the paddock, politely taking turns at the water trough and the bales of hay, one of them caught my eye. There was something about her—something that called out to me across the years—and so I whinnied, and then I neighed as loudly as I could.
Mama! Mama Petra, is it you?
At first nothing … and then she wearily lifted her head and looked at me. There was a tiny flicker of recognition in her dark eyes, and then she tossed her head and whickered and pushed her way to the fence.
I am here, little one, she cried. I am here.
I pulled so hard on the rope that Anton had no choice but to follow. My mama, my Petra, stretched her neck over the top rail and we rubbed our heads together, stroking and nuzzling each other and making little contented noises in our throats.
There have been many fine and important moments in my life, but that was the sweetest.
The Winter Riding Hall
After the war we went to live in Wels, the city I had seen in flames from the train. The cavalry barracks and their stables had survived. That must have pleased the Colonel, who had trained there as a young officer. My mother and her sisters stayed in St. Martin until they were fit to travel, and then went home to Piber. I never saw Mama Petra again. But I knew she would be fed and loved, and that was all I could hope for.
Liesl and her mother went back to Vienna, so Liesl could finish her schooling and go to the university. The day they left she hugged me as if she never wanted to let go, and my neck was wet with her tears. “Auf Wiedersehen, my Petra,” she whispered. “We’ll be together again, I promise.”
When we had left Vienna in March of 1945, we thought it would be for a short time. But the Colonel went there soon after the war ended and came back with terrible stories. The city was in ruins. Entire blocks were gone, and pieces of houses stuck up from the rubble like broken teeth. The Stallburg had been hit by bombs and was badly damaged. The Winter Riding Hall had been spared, but it was being used to store crates and scenery from the State Opera House, which had also been bombed. No more Vienna Woods—the stables of the Schönbrunn had burned to the ground, just as the Colonel had feared. Vienna was lost to us.
It takes money to feed horses and people, and we had no money. So we took to the open road, like a troupe of actors traveling from one village to the next. Liesl’s brother, Hans, was my Bereiter now, and Martin stayed in Wels to train the new horses. After the story of how the Lipizzaners had been rescued by the American soldiers spread around the world, everyone wanted to see us. I remember a stadium in Switzerland with lovely, firm turf, and the riding hall of Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, as elegant as my Winter Riding Hall but smaller. We gave a special exhibition at the 1948 Olympic Games, and for the president of Italy in the historic medieval piazza of Siena. We even danced for Queen Elizabeth II of England, who is quite fond of horses. We sailed on a ship all the way to America to perform in Madison Square Garden. One of the New York City newspapers said we were better dancers than the Rockettes, whoever they were.
It was all very exciting … but I missed my stall, with the Lipizzaner statue gazing serenely down at me and the sounds of the Josefsplatz wafting across the courtyard. I missed the way the sunlight streamed through the windows of the Winter Riding Hall, and the aromas of coffee and Apfel strudel in the streets. And I missed my girl.
I was not to see Vienna for ten years. Finally, in the autumn of 1955, the Stallburg was rebuilt and the Winter Riding Hall was restored so we could return. I was an old horse by then, but we Lipizzaners can perform well into our twenties and we often live into our thirties. I liked to think that I was still in my prime, and so I was ready—I was eager!—for whatever came next.
When our train pulled into the Südbahnhof, a band was playing and a large crowd was waiting, with newspaper reporters and television and newsreel cameras. And there was Liesl, at the very front of the crowd, calling my name over and over again and holding up a bag of apples! She looked all grown-up, but her long braid still shone down her back, and her round blue eyes were as sparkly and friendly as ever.
The next morning, when we came out of the Stallburg for Morning Parade, the Viennese clapped and cheered, so happy were they to see us again. As we walked down the street they would shyly reach out to touch us or stroke our manes—just to make sure we were real and not a dream from the past—and many were smiling and weeping at the same time. We had left in secret and returned in triumph!
I slipped back into the old routine as easily as slipping into a well-worn bridle: mornings in the Winter Riding Hall with Martin, who was back from Wels to correct any bad habits I had picked up on tour, and afternoons with my girl. The only thing missing was Anton, who had retired to a little cottage in Wiener Neustadt. My days seemed odd without him, but every Sunday he took the train up to comb my tail and bring me carrots from his garden.
I worked harder in those weeks than I ever had, preparing for the grand gala on October 14, 1955, that would mark the reopening of the Winter Riding Hall. Hans came early that night—he always liked to check the tack and be with me for a few minutes while it was quiet—and Liesl came to wish us luck. They were both in such high spirits that they started waltzing around my stall. And that’s when Hans tripped over my water bucket … and went down, hard.
He sat up in the straw, clutching his right ankle and rocking back and forth and moaning.
“Hansie, what is it?” Liesl said worriedly. “Are you all right?”
“Take my boot off,” he panted, and put his right leg out. Liesl tugged and pulled and got it off, and then gasped and put a hand over her mouth. His right ankle was bright red and already so swollen and puffed you couldn’t see the anklebone. “That’s it,” he said miserably. “Go tell Colonel Podhajsky we’ll be a horse short. Unless he’s got a spare Bereiter in his pocket.”
“Why can’t Papa ride Petra?”
&n
bsp; “Then who would ride Neapolitano Afrika?”
“You have to ride!” she cried. “Petra has to perform in the gala.”
So he struggled to his feet and tried to walk. “No good,” he said after two painful steps. “I’ll never get my foot into the stirrup. Or get my boot back on, for that matter. I’m sorry, Liesl.” He reached out and patted my neck. “Poor Petra. It looks like you’ve got the night off.”
“Then there’s only one thing to do,” Liesl said with a strange gleam in her eyes. She dashed to the tack room and was back in seconds with a large pair of scissors. With one sharp snick, her braid slithered down her back and curled into the straw at my feet like a shining yellow snake.
“What are you doing?” Hans said, staring at her.
“I’m going to ride Petra.”
That started quite an argument! In the end, however, Hans had no choice but to agree. “I must be crazy,” he kept muttering. “This will never work.” They hid in a supply closet to change clothes, Hans back into his suit and tie and Liesl into his uniform: beige breeches and boots that came up over the knee (the feet were too big, so she stuffed the toes with handfuls of my hay), a special scarlet tailcoat for the gala, and spotless white gloves. The black cocked hat was the finishing touch. It sat snugly on her head, with two little wings over the ears, like handles.
“How do I look?” she asked as he gave her a leg up into my saddle.
“Not bad,” he said gruffly.
“I know I can do this, Hansie. I know it.”
“Ah, this old boy knows the routine so well he could do it in his sleep,” said Hans as he stroked my muzzle. “Just don’t fall off and you’ll be all right. But keep your head down and don’t look anyone in the face. If you get me fired, I’ll never speak to you again. And Papa will kill us both.”
The Winter Riding Hall never looked more splendid than it did on that crisp fall night. Every crystal in the chandeliers had been washed and polished so they cast rainbows around the white walls and the carved ceiling. There was a new layer of sand and sawdust on the floor, with two dates lettered in pale yellow sawdust against the brown: 1735, when the Spanische Reitschule was founded, and 1955, when we came home.
The galleries were packed, not an empty seat to be had, and people were standing in the back against the windows. The men were in evening clothes, all black and white, and some of the fancier ladies were wearing diamonds on their heads like Queen Elizabeth. The president of Austria came, and important senators and government officials, and ambassadors from around the world. All of Vienna was there to celebrate the return of their beloved Lipizzaners.
The orchestra swept into the opening bars of the waltz from Der Rosenkavalier, a gorgeous trumpeting burst of sound that made my ears prick up. “Dum da dum dum, dum dum da-a-a-a-a-ah,” sang the French horns … and we were on.
I could feel Liesl vibrating like a hummingbird through the entire performance, but her hands on my reins were sure and steady. We shouldered into the pas de deux, dancing beside the Colonel and Pluto Theodorosta in perfect mirror image. I slid smoothly into the piaffe when the time came, and Liesl sat still and upright and let me lead the way. Hans was right: I did know every step of every dance and, really, all she had to do was stay in the saddle. But she was better than that. When I leaped into my courbette we seemed to move as one. When I reared into the levade we looked just like the statue in front of the Hofburg—except it was Princess Eugénie on my back and not Prince Eugène! My girl was the best Bereiter of them all, if only for one night.
We made our final bow, and Liesl lifted the cocked hat off her shorn head with the traditional flourish. We left quickly and sped back to the Stallburg, where Liesl went to the supply closet and changed back into her dress. There was barely time. Within minutes the other horses and Bereiter were back. The stables filled with photographers and newspaper reporters and people raising glasses of champagne to toast our wonderful performance. The Colonel was surrounded all night by men slapping him on the back and ladies kissing him on the cheek. I didn’t get to sleep until after midnight.
In all the excitement, no one seemed to notice that Liesl’s braid was gone and Hans was limping. I think Martin suspected, but he never said a word.
As far as I know, Liesl and Hans never told anyone. I never have, either … until now.
Home
I am old now, but I have been young. And I remember.
I remember the years of training that made me, step by careful step, into the perfectly mannered creature I became.
I remember war. I remember a sky turned red with fire, and Liesl, who whispered soothing words into my pricking ears. I remember the day she saved my life, and I galloped down a mountain path like a wild Arabian racing over desert sands. I remember the soldiers from America, with their wide smiles and loud voices, and how they clapped and whistled when I danced for them.
I remember Petra, my mother, with her dark loving eyes and warm muzzle. I remember Colonel Alois Podhajsky, the Colonel, and how he cared for us and worked so hard. I remember Oberbereiter Martin Haas, and how patient and kind he was to a green horse from the country. And I remember Anton, who was my friend.
I remember the piaffe, fiery and slow and solemn. I remember the levade and the courbette, the ancient and beautiful moves only Lipizzaner stallions can do. I remember the long years of exile, and the glorious return to the Winter Riding Hall with Liesl on my back, as light as a dandelion puff and trembling with joy as we bowed to the portrait of the emperor. I remember the music, lilting and lovely, and the warming sound of applause.
I am retired now. When your legs grow stiff and you can no longer rise into your levade with ease, the time has come. And so I was returned to the golden fields and sunny slopes of Piber, where my life began so many years ago. Every spring I see my new sons and daughters totter into the sunshine on legs as black and slender as mine once were. When summer comes, and we walk up the dusty road into the mountains to graze the high pastures, I watch them run and play and roll on their backs in a meadow dotted with white flowers. Will any of my sons, I wonder, be chosen to make the long journey to Vienna? Will they eat out of marble and learn to dance in a glittering white ballroom?
When the shadows grow long across the grass and it is time to go, I know there will be fresh straw waiting in my stall, where my name is over the door. The water will be clean and cool in the bucket, the oats will be sweet and crisp with never a speck of chaff, and maybe there will be an apple for dessert.
I am Maestoso Petra, and I remember. I remember it all.
APPENDIX
MORE ABOUT THE
LIPIZZANER
Born to Dance
When the world-famous Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School perform, it is magical. They are fairy-tale beautiful, with smooth white coats, large dark eyes, and the delicate heads of their Arabian ancestors. The riders in their elegant uniforms are solemn and serious, focused on the task at hand. The horses seem to float, silently and serenely, through intricate patterns as graceful as Swan Lake—this is a ballet, and the hard work of rehearsal must never show. Behind each flawless move are years of training, and a tradition that goes back to ancient Greece: the dressage moves of the haute école, the high school, were first described in On Horsemanship, a book written by Xenophon around 350 BC.
The Spanish Riding School has survived war, famine, and the Hapsburg Empire that founded it. The school only survived World War II because of the tireless efforts of Colonel Alois Podhajsky, who was its director from 1939 to 1965. “We must live for the school,” he wrote in his memoirs. “Offer our lives to it. Then perhaps, little by little, the light will grow from the tiny candle we keep lit here, and the great art—of the haute école—will not be snuffed out.”
September 9, 2008, marked a turning point in the long history of the Spanish Riding School. On that day, a twenty-one-year-old Austrian woman and a seventeen-year-old British woman began their training as riders! No woman had ridden i
n the beautiful Winter Riding Hall for over a century, not since ladies of the Imperial Court had been allowed to participate in riding festivals.
A Long History
The first Lipizzaners date from around AD 800, when desert horses from North Africa were brought to Spain and crossed with native Spanish horses. The new breed was sturdy, intelligent, and agile. By the sixteenth century the horses were in great demand, both for military uses and for the riding academies that had become fashionable among European royalty. In 1580 the archduke Charles II, brother of the Austrian emperor Maximilian II, established a stud at Lipizza, in Slovenia, which gave the breed its name. In 1735 Emperor Charles VI founded the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, named it for the horses’ country of origin, and built the Winter Riding Hall in the Imperial Palace.
The Federal Stud at Piber was established as the official source of the breed in 1920. Only the finest stallions and mares—those who display the best physical and mental qualities of the breed—are allowed to produce foals. All true Lipizzaners can trace their ancestry to one of six stallions: Pluto (born in 1765), Conversano (born in 1767), Neapolitano (born in 1790), Favory (born in 1779), Siglavy (born in 1810), and Maestoso (born in 1773). Mares are given only one name. Stallions are given two. The first is for the lineage of their sire, and the second is for their dam: Maestoso Petra, Conversano Nina, Pluto Theodorosta, etc.