The Spanish Riding School Vienna is the world’s oldest riding academy and can proudly look back on its 440 years of history and tradition.
Having toured for the first time in 1925, in Berlin, the world-renowned Lipizzaners and their riders have since gone on to delight sold-out audiences in practically every European country, the United States and Japan. Today their arena performances are in high demand from promoters and audiences alike, in all corners of the globe.
Founded during the Renaissance period, the School has always focused on shaping horse and rider into a living, perfect work of art, based on the principles of classical horsemanship that were already valid during antiquity.
However, it also has the statutory mandate to preserve and promote the High School of Classical Horsemanship and to ensure that the Lipizzaner, Europe’s oldest cultural horse breed, is consistently bred in its historical tradition.
Since 1920 the descendants of the Habsburgs’ original Lipizzaner herd have been successfully bred at the Federal Stud Piber. The historically unique and original Lipizzaner stud book is also kept in Piber and is to this day faithfully maintained.
The Spanish Riding School in Vienna and the Federal Stud Piber are therefore not “living museums” but quite the opposite – worldwide ambassadors of a way of riding which calls for a great deal of skill and responsibility.
The sublime harmony of the presentations is founded on a lifelong partnership between horse and rider. Based on mutual respect and trust the horses’ natural movements are promoted and cultivated. The apparent ease and perfection are the result of years of intensive, daily training of horse and rider.