The Horses of the Air
October 11th 2006 04:40
The Capriole
Define the stunt that is performed by the horse. Is it the launch through glass, the dash through open flames, or the falling horse? I wonder where the stunt horse ends and the performance horse begins, because there are movements executed by the horses of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna that are defined as “advanced classical dressage” movements. Not stunts, but something similar if they were on screen.
As with the movie horses, the horses of the Spanish Riding School are supreme athletes with education that is more meticulous and more careful than any other equestrian institution in the world. The horses perform movements that bow to early military practices and their loyalty to tradition is extreme. All horses bar one are grey (white) and women riders are not permitted into the academy. But the school is all about the horses. Many of the movements are executed without riders, and often it is these that are the truly awesome spectacles.
Performing the croupade
The capriole movement is the most brilliant of the Lipizzaner movements, with the horse launching himself into the air and kicking the hind legs out behind him. Other moves like the courbette put the horse in a perfect rear with a jump into the air, and the levade, a half-rear with the stallion suspending himself on his quarters.
Some horses, like humans, are extremely athletic and launch themselves into a capriole like an elastic band, their quarters kicking back with so much speed and elasticity you are led to forget the animal weighs more than half a tonne. And this is where the magic of the Spanish Riding School begins, because like the movie horse they are trained to perform movements they can already do but to do them on command. The suspended movements became known as “the airs above the ground” and the movements requiring no suspension "the airs on the ground".
Without question the movie horses and these Stallions of Vienna demonstrate the willingness of spirit and the athleticism of the horse. It lifts the soul to see a horse performing something that defies gravity or logic, be it a diving horse or a movie horse or the Academy stallion. So Churchill was right… there is something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man.
A thank you to Alois Podhajsky's book "The Lipizzaners" (1969) of which I am so lucky to have found a copy on a friend's bookshelf gathering dust and rips. One man's trash...!
And a thank you to The Spanish Riding School for the visual splendour that their site is!
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Comment by Sonya O
Comment by JessOw
The Tack Room
I heard once that a truly black horse is also a rarity, that if a horse with a black body has a brown muzzle or brown points around its feet then it is a brown horse. But I don't think this one is accurate!
Comment by Sonya O
Comment by JessOw
The Tack Room
Comment by Philip OCarroll
Have there been any famous gray racing horses?
Comment by JessOw
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