Spanish Riding School, Dressage.com

The Spanish Riding School of Vienna

The Vienna Performance:
Young Stallions and All Steps and Movements
by John D'Addamio

This article begins a series of articles that will describe a Spanish Riding School performance. In particular, it will discuss the approximately one hour performance that the SRS performs at home in Vienna. There is a shortened version of that performance as well as variations of the "long performance" that they use when they are on tour or for the rare gala performances.

The first section of the performance is the "Young Stallions" section. Eight horses and riders enter the arena in single file at the walk through gates where A would be in a competition arena. The stallions are about 6 years old and, consequently, most of them are still quite dark.

All of them are either near the end of the "calm, forward, straight" stage of training or have finished it.

[There are 3 stages in a horse's training at the SRS.

The first stage is often called calm, forward, straight riding and the horse is expected to do just that! He should go freely forward in all three gaits with natural carriage whether on the bit or on a long rein. The horse is ridden forward and the corners are quite rounded. Turns and large circles are introduced during this stage. The rising trot is used and, when they introduce canter work, the horse is pushed forward in the trot until he breaks into the canter more or less on his own.]

Those that have finished the "calm, forward, straight" stage are in the early part of the Campaign School. The horses are both physically and mentally relaxed. The choreography consists of straight lines and large circles and is ridden at the trot and canter. As in training sessions, the corners are pretty round; these horses haven't yet learned to make deep corners. The horses are ridden "straight" at all times because the tracks of their hind legs follow the tracks of their forelegs.

Usually, one of the stallions will impress the dressage riders in the audience more than the other stallions. For example, in 1997, Favory Dagmar impressed me enough that I made a note of his name. F. Dagmar is now doing levades in the performances. However, six or seven years ago, they must have had very good foal crops at Piber. In 2007, five different stallions impressed us: Neapolitano Dahes, Neapolitano Rubina, Maestoso Riga, Maestoso Kerka, and Siglavy Malina II.

Dahes impressed us with his willingness and steadiness. Rubina impressed with the action of his gaits that suggests he will have a great piaffe and passage. We didn't make a note of their pedigrees. Riga and Kerka were sired by Maestoso Bellamira who was ridden by retired First Chief Rider Kottas in the Pas de Deux section of the performance for many years. Malina was sired by Siglavy Mantua I, the solo horse ridden by First Chief Rider Krzisch in the School's performances. If you saw the School on tour in 2005 or on tour anywhere else in the past 15 years, it was Mantua and Krzisch you saw doing the solo. These three seem to have the talent to replace their superstar sires in years to come! We won't see any of these talented youngsters again until they are near the end of their High School training and can appear in the Quadrille.

The next section of the performance is All Steps and Movements of the Classical School. In his book, Handler says that the 'Young Stallions' and this section "are deliberately juxtaposed" so as to show the beginning and culmination of training. In addition to movements from the Campaign School, these horses will show the most difficult exercises of the High School: piaffe, passage, canter tempi changes (every stride, two strides and three strides), and canter pirouettes. Each horse and rider performed all the movements twice. Each rider determines the order he will show the exercises. At the performances we saw in 2007, the movements like piaffe and canter pirouette were done once each about where D & G would be in a standard competition arena. The SRS arena is slightly smaller (18 M x 55 M rather than 20 M x 60 M) but that's the closest familiar reference.

Tempi changes were done on the diagonals, the center line and quarter lines. Everything was well done but what caught my attention most were the piaffes shown by Siglavy Theodora I (Chief Rider Riegler) and Neapolitano Nicolleta (Chief Rider Eder). They were absolutely stunning! Letter perfect and totally relaxed. Now, the piaffes shown by the other two horses would beat practically everything I have ever seen in a competition! If I were judging, I'd have given the other horses at least an 8 but Theodora and Nicolleta would have gotten a 10 that day!

Next Time: the Pas de Deux and Work In Hand.

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