460 Years

Spanish Riding School

The Aristocrats Among Horses

Lipizzaner Illustration

Since the Renaissance, riding lessons have been part of the basic training for a life at the courts of Europe. Only the noblest horse breeds were considered for use bythe high nobility. This is how the rise of our Lipizzaners began. They competed with the Arabs and Andalusians to see who was more elegant, intelligent and graceful. In the end, the Lipizzaners' eagerness to learn prevailed, which was to make them so sure-footed on the stage of high equestrian arts.

460 Years
Classical Horsemanship

HERITAGE. DEDICATION. BEAUTY.

1565

First mention of a riding place at today’s Josefsplatz. This is considered the first reference to what would later become the Spanish Riding School.

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1580

Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria founded a court stud farm near the village of Lipica. Over the following centuries, the Lipizzaner breed was developed here.

1729

Construction of the Winter Riding School from 1729 to 1735 under Emperor Charles VI, designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach and built by his son, Joseph Emanuel Johann Fischer von Erlach.

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1740

Under Empress Maria Theresia, who ascended the throne in 1740, the Winter Riding School was host to numerous carousels, masquerades, equestrian games and court balls.

1848

The first parliament of the monarchy convened in the Winter Riding School.

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1867

Emperor Franz Joseph was crowned King of Hungary on the Coronation Hill near Budapest, riding the Lipizzaner stallion Maestoso Cerbero.

1898

Field Marshal Franz von Holbein-Holbeinsberg and Chief Rider Johann Meixner documented the „Directives,“, die das gesamte mündlich überlieferte Wissen um die Reitkunst an der Spanischen Hofreitschule umfassen, durch Feldmarschall Franz von Holbein-Holbeinsberg und Oberbereiter Johann Meixner.

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19.Jh.

Under Maximilian von Weyrother, the Spanish Riding School became a mecca for equestrians in Central Europe. His grandfather, father, and brother Gottlieb had also served as Chief Riders at the school.

1919

The school was preserved after World War I by the equestrian team, led by Mauritius Herold, who remained loyal to the service after the war. The first public performance took place one and a half years after the war’s end.

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1920

The Austrian part of the original Lipizzaner herd was relocated to Piber in Western Styria, where the direct lineage of the imperial herd has been bred according to classical baroque Lipizzaner standards to this day.

1925

First international international tours and growing popularity of the school under its first director, Rudolf Count van der Straten.

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1938

Major Alois Podhajsky, transferred from the Austrian Federal Army to the German Wehrmacht, became the new director of the riding institute.

1945

In 1945, the school stallions of the Spanish Riding School and the mare herd, which had been evacuated to Bohemia from the former federal stud farm in Piber, were reunited in St. Martin (Upper Austria) and later moved to Wels and Wimsbach (Upper Austria).

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1955

The Spanish Riding School returned to its traditional home in the Vienna Hofburg. The first performance took place on 26 October, 1955, the newly established Austrian National Day.

2008

For the first time, women were admitted to train to become riders.

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2010

The High School of Classical Horsemanship at the Spanish Riding School was recognized as national cultural heritage by UNESCO.

2015

450th anniversary. Inclusion in the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage of humanity.

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2016

Hannah Zeitlhofer became the first woman in the history of the Spanish Riding School to be appointed as a rider.

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2019

The exceptional stallion Neapolitano Nima I celebrated his 40th birthday, making him the oldest registered Lipizzaner in the world.

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