When the right vertuous E.W. and I were at the Emperour’s court togither [in Vienna in 1574], wee gave our selves to learne horsemanship of Ion Pietro Pugliano . . . He said . . . horsemen were the noblest of soldiers . . . they were the maisters of war, and ornaments of peace, …
Category Archives: Lipizzaners
Sunday Morning Time Travel
Wonderful news for overworked writers who don’t have time to maintain their blogs: British Pathé have uploaded their stock of vintage film clips to YouTube. As the old slogan of the British tabloid the News of the World used to claim, “all human life is there”, and quite a bit of horsey life too. So …
Want to Smell Like a Horse?
Thank you to Slaminsky for pointing me towards these scents for the wealthy and horse crazy. Parfums de Marly present a range of equine-themed perfumes: Godolphin: “opulent rose note, leading to a woody-leather scent base. Top notes: thyme, saffron, cypress, green notes, fruity notes and mate. Heart: rose, iris and jasmine. Base: leather, vetiver, cedar, …
The Politics of Dressage
The US election is over but how could I forget to blog this October 1st New Yorker cover by Barry Blitt? I’m not sure that a horse with a back that long could pull off a levade, but I’m amused that Mitt’s “dressage horse” appears to be a Lipizzaner. I didn’t even clock that the …
One Elderly Lady and One Nearly Middle-Aged Lady in the Havelland (with apologies to Penelope Chetwode)
Today I had a long overdue ride at Sabine Zuckmantel’s Wanderreiten im Havelland, the stable that features in the last chapter of If Wishes Were Horses. Half the horses were away (along with Sabine) on a ride in Poland, so we were a small group, and I was assigned the yard’s Queen Mother, Etincelle. Etincelle …
Fair Girls on Grey Horses
Fantastic news via Fran Jurga’s Equus blog: Hannah Zeitlhofer, one of the two first women to be admitted to the Spanish Riding School of Vienna (video from 2008), qualified as an “Bereiteran’wärterin” on the 1st May. This means she can now take part in the famous school’s public displays. British-American rider Sojourner Morrell dropped out …
If Wishes Were Horses: Kassane
Images of the horses at Wanderreiten im Havelland. This post relates to a chapter of the book If Wishes Were Horses: A Memoir of an Equine Obsession. If you have any questions to ask about the content, please fire away in the comments. The main online index for the book is here.
Off White Horses: First Woman at Spanish Riding School Becomes Model
Ever wondered what happened to the two young women who were the first admitted to train at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna in 2009? Austrian Hannah Zeitlhofer is still there (judging by a photoshoot I saw in A Magazine in spring/summer 2010. Sojourner Morrell, the British-American teenager and youngest of the pair, left after …
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