Spanish Riding School, Dressage.com

The Spanish Riding School of Vienna
The True Miracle of the White Stallions
1939 - 1955

The True Miracle
of the White Stallions

Spanish
Riding School

The Breeding Herd in Exile

By John D’Addamio

In the previous article, I outlined the Spanish Riding School’s decade in Upper Austria. Podhajsky had to care for the breeding herd as well as School. Since the Twentieth Corps had decreed that all the Lipizzaner horses were to remain in the American Zone of Austria, the breeding herd could not return to Piber because Piber was in the British Zone.

So, what happened to the breeding herd? When they were moved from Schwarzenberg, Bavaria to Austria, the horses had been deposited at a former German military airfield between Reichersberg and Sankt Martin so that the breeding herd was only 2 1/2 miles (4 KM) from the School’s performance horses. Reichersberg is about 10 KM (6 miles) west of Sankt Martin and closer to the Inn river and the border with Bavaria. The airplane hangars had been converted to stables by the time Podhajsky received the herd. Soon after the breeding herd arrived, Twentieth Corps decided to use the airfield so Podhajsky had to move the herd.¹ It is important to note that Col. Reed had sent to Podhajsky not only the Austrian breeding herd but also the Yugoslav and Italian breeding stock. He literally had the fate of the Lipizzaner breed in his hands!

A U.S. Army captain was assigned to assist Podhajsky in finding new accommodations for the breeding herd. It was a difficult task for refugees and Hungarian Army horses had priority status. The Army captain had to pull some strings to even get some people to talk to Podhajsky. Eventually, Podhajsky found accommodation but had to split the horses among several locations: Forty Piber broodmares and 19 foals as well as the mares and foals from Lipizza went to Wimsbach; barren mares from Piber and Demi Kapia went to Lambach; the young horses were divided between Lambach and Otterbach.² Those locations are far to the east of Sankt Martin where the School still resided. But, his trouble with stabling was not over!

Those locations were unsuitable for winter quarters and Podhajsky wanted to send the Austrian herd home to Piber before winter arrived. However, the American army would not permit that as they could not provide fodder for the herd in the British Zone. The Military Government of Upper Austria and Salzburg promised to help Podhajsky find winter quarters. In the end, he had to set up stabling and a false ceiling in three exhibition halls in Ried to provide winter quarters for 82 broodmares, 8 foals, and 55 fillies.³

Apart from stabling, Podhajsky’s biggest problems were feed and grooms for the breeding stock. Before the end of the war, Podhajsky had accumulated supplies of feed for the School from the provisions he was given by the Wehrmacht. This did not last long when he had to feed the breeding herds as well! The Military Government had ordered that the Lipizzaner be provide with a 6 month supply of feed. However, the civilian authority in charge of actually supplying the feed would only send him 2 weeks supply at a time. So, Podhajsky spent a lot of time driving back and forth to Linz and waiting in civil offices in order to get his allotted feed. That nightmare continued until December 1945 when an American inspector came to ask why Podhajsky had not claimed his 6 month supply of feed. The civilian office in Linz had told the inspector that they had received no requirements from Podhajsky and, therefore, could not make an allocation for him. Podhajsky showed him copies of his applications to the Linz office and, the next day, received a written order for his supplies. But, nothing is ever easy! In order to get the required amounts, Podhajsky had to get small consignments from numerous and widely scattered distribution centers. It took until February 1946 to actually obtain all the supplies to keep the herd from December 1945 until the end of May1946!⁴

The problem of stable workers for the combined breeding herd was monumental! The staff from Hostau had come with the horses. But, the Poles and Ukrainians soon left for home. Podhajsky was left with only 13 trained stud workers from Lipizza and a few German refugees. But, the men from Lipizza longed to go home. By December 1945, they left. Podhajsky found only a few replacements and many of them deserted him soon after they got their ration cards. There were times he had only three men who were only able to feed and water all the horses.⁵

In the spring of 1946, Podhajsky had to move the breeding herd again! There were no pastures in Ried and his supplies would run out in May. Once again, he tried to send them home to Piber but the Director of the stud wanted him to send feed along with the horses. The Military Government would still not permit shipping feed into the British Zone so the herd stayed in Upper Austria. Podhajsky managed to move the herd to Wimsbach even before he completed negotiations for the lease. Most of the Austrian breeding herd would remain at Wimsbach until 1952!⁶

Podhajsky was also breeding the horses! In 1946, the mares that had been bred in 1945 dropped their foals and some of those foals became performers at the School. Podhajsky selected matings for 82 mares in 1946 which resulted in 55 healthy foals the following year.⁷

Also in the spring of 1946, Yugoslavia and Italy filed claims to repatriate their Lipizzaner. The process was complicated by the fact that both countries wanted the Lipizza herd. It was not until mid November 1947 that the horses left Upper Austria for Italy.

The year of 1947 had been remarkably dry in Upper Austria so feed was in short supply. To offset the shortage, Podhajsky managed to send one group of mares and three stallions to breed them to Piber. He also managed to obtain significant supplies of oats, hay and straw from Italy in compensation for feeding the horses from Lipizza. The rest of the Austrian breeding herd remained at Wimsbach under Podhajsky’s supervision until September 1952. The combination of sending part of the Austrian herd to Piber and obtaining the supplies from Italy apparently eased most of Podhajsky’s problems because he describes supervising the herd at Wimsbach for the next 5 years as an “easy matter.”⁸

Next time: The School Returns to Vienna

Footnotes:

1. Podhajsky, "My Dancing White Horses", New York, Holt Rinehart & Winston, 1965, 302p, page 130

2. Podhajsky, page 133 -135

3. Podhajsky, page 137

4. Podhajsky, page 138

5. Podhajsky, page 138 – 139

6. Podhajsky, page 140 – 141

7. Podhajsky, page 139

8. Podhajsky, page 142 - 143

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