The Lovely Lipizzaner Horse

The Lipizzaner horse descends from the Iberian horse, which is thought to be the world's oldest horse breed. They were originally used as war horses thousands of years ago. The official breed was created in 1590 in Austria by the Archduke. The Spanish Riding School in Vienna was established in 1735 and is the world's oldest riding school. The school got its name for the predominately Spanish horses that were found there. This school also worked to record this breed's bloodlines, which began with an original nine studs. Six of these were used for horses at the school only.

This breed measures between 14 and 16 hands on average. While they are compact, they are very muscular. This allows them to do the High School dressage they are so famous for. Their neck is gracefully arched and their head is neither too big or too small. The eyes are large and expressive, with a gently Roman profile. The mane and tail are abundant yet silky and fine. Foals are born bay or black but develop their distinctive gray color over the years. These horses are slow growers and do not achieve their adult coat color until they are between four and ten years of age. The coat can lighten all the way to white as the horse reaches full maturity. Speaking of maturity, these horses can live as long as 35 years.

These horses perform what is called the Airs Above the Ground which is a very complicated form of dressage. These horses are the dancers of the equine world and can do a variety of difficult tricks. Stallions that come to the Spanish Riding School must be around four years of age. Full training takes six years at the school. Horses are trained with patience and much gentleness. The end result is a magnificent horse who can perform such movements as the levade, courbette, capriole and croupade.

As you can imagine, the Lipizzaner horse is rare and expensive. There are only several thousand in the world. There are various breeders around the world that offer stallions, brood mares, colts, fillies and even geldings for sale. Whether you want to show your horse, breed horses or simply have a beautiful and intelligent companion horse, you cannot go wrong with this breed. As an owner of one of these horses, you should consider joining an organization devoted to the breed such as Lipizzan Association of North America.



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