Vintage Spanish Riding School--Miracle of the White Stallions

Robert Taylor riding(compare his riding skill's to Col. Podhajsky's below) Conversano Soja

Some of the Riders & Stallions appearing in the movie are:

Lauscha Rider & Siglavy Morella (Courbette)
Podhajsky and Pluto Brezia In hand Courbette.
Josef Riedler & Pluto Presciana I Capriole Rider
Podhajsky & Neapolitano Santuzza. Karl was also in the movie and Podhajsky stated N. Santuzza was the best horse at the Capriole but was never jumped under saddle.
Hans Irbinger on N. Ancona (brown)
Irbinger rode Favory Brezia in the Levade.
In the quadrille Podhajsky rode 2 horses M. Alea I and C. Soja. In the lead. Watch the mane color change.

The second horse behind Podhajsky is S. Bona (beautiful young grey at the time) & rider Josef Riedler.

The third rider is Bachinger on Pluto Wanda.

Podhajsky used to describe the horses in the quadrille should look like "A Chain of Pearls".





On May 7, 1945, the day before Germany surrendered and the war in Europe ended, Gen. George S. Patton Jr. and Robert Patterson, the Undersecretary of War, drove to Schloss Arco in nearby St. Martin im Innkreiss in Upper Austria to see the white Lipizzaner stallions of the famous Spanische Hofreitschule, or Spanish Riding School.

The Lipizzaners had been secretly evacuated to St. Martin from Vienna in March 1945 by the Spanish Riding School's director, Col. Alois Podhajsky, who was afraid the stallions would be killed by air raids or captured by the approaching Russian army and sent to the Soviet Union.

With lack of fodder for his horses and uncertainties facing the future of the school, Podhajsky thought the American Army could help him protect his magnificent stallions and the 200-year-old Spanish Riding School. To that end, Podhajsky enlisted the aid of XX Corps commander Walton Walker, who invited Gen. Patton to a demonstration of the haute école.

At Schloss Arco, Patton and Patterson watched a performance of the Lipizzaners. The white stallions were famous the world over for their splendid leaps, the graceful dance of Pas de Trois, and the quadrille ballet. Known for their classical beauty, intelligence and athleticism, the origin of the Lipizzaners goes back to the village of Lipizza in present day Slovenia, where the court stud was founded in 1580 with Spanish horses imported by Archduke Charles II.

With his stallions now in the safe hands of Gen. Patton and the U.S. Third Army, Col. Podhajsky was faced with another concern. Two years earlier in 1943, the Lipizzaners' breeding mares, which were bred to supply the Spanish Riding School's stallions, were taken by the German High Command from the lush green pastures of the Austrian Federal Stud in Fiber. Podhajsky knew that without the mares, the Lipizzaner stallions and the Spanish Riding School faced extinction.

What Col. Podhajsky did not know at the time was that Gen. Patton was already involved in the Spanish Riding School's destiny.

Nine days before, Patton had given approval to one of his commanders, Col. Charles Hancock Reed of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group (Mechanized), to execute an operation to rescue from the German Army more than 1,000 horses that included the Fiber breeding mares.

The story of the dramatic rescue began on April 25,1945, when Capt. Ferdinand P. Sperl, who was attached as an interrogator to the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group, received information that a German intelligence unit that lacked transportation to Berlin was bivouacked in an area on the Czechoslovakian border. After negotiating with the German commander, Capt. Sperl led an "attack" early on April 26, and after a prearranged exchange of harmless gun fire, the Germans surrendered.

Later that day Col. Reed and the German general in charge of the intelligence unit had breakfast together. The two men found that they had a mutual interest in horses. The general showed Reed some beautiful photographs of Lipizzaners and Arabs that had recently been taken at the German Remount Depot at Hostau, Czechoslovakia.

Patton's reply was relayed to Reed: "Get them. Make it fast! You will have a new mission."

That night at about 8:00 P.M. Capt. Rudolph Lessing, German staff veterinarian at Hostau, arrived at one of Reed's border posts to arrange the surrender. He was riding a Lipizzaner and leading another. The German officer was taken to Col. Reed's headquarters, where the men had cocktails and dinner.

It was agreed that as an act of good faith, an American officer would ride back with Lessing and arrange the surrender of Hostau. Lessing warned Reed that between the American lines and Hostau there were elements of an SS Division that would fight. Reed was not concerned.

Capt. Thomas M. Stewart of the 42nd Squadron, a fine horseman from Tennessee and the son of a U.S. senator, volunteered to ride back with Lessing. The men were taken by jeep to the border post, climbed atop the Lipizzaners and rode off to Hostau.

After some harrowing experiences behind German lines, Stewart returned by motorcycle sidecar on the night of April 27. He reported that the German commanding officer, Lt. Col. Hubert Rudofsky, and his staff at Hostau, with the exception of a Czech-born lieutenant colonel, agreed to surrender when American forces arrived. Stewart told Reed that the Germans preferred to turn the horses over to the Americans rather than to the approaching Russians.

Col. Reed went ahead and gave the order to a small force he had already assembled to proceed with the mission to capture Hostau. Named Task Force Reed, the unit consisted of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group's 42nd Cavalry Squadron, which included a platoon of tanks and assault guns. Maj. Robert P. Andrews, with Capt. Stewart as his assistant, commanded the task force.

The Headquarters 2nd Cavalry Group combat log for April 28, 1945, showed the 42nd Squadron also captured 416 prisoners and released 150 Allied prisoners of war. The next morning, a part of the task force rejoined the 2nd Cavalry Group. Capt. Stewart and one platoon of tanks were left to control Hostau and to protect its valuable horses.

Fearing an attack by the SS troops in the area, Stewart organized a defense force using some of the released Polish prisoners and Hostau's German troops and their anti-communist Cossack allies, who wanted to maintain the horse farm. The SS troops attacked Hostau late on April 30, 1945. A five-hour battle took place, which resulted in Stewart's forces defeating the attackers and capturing 100 prisoners; one soldier of the 42nd Squadron was killed and another wounded.

With Germany's unconditional surrender a week later, the war in Europe ended. On the day hostilities ceased, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group was on the general line extending about 10 miles southeast of Pilsen-Horsice-Zinkovy-Nepomuk in Czechoslovakia. Their new mission was to prevent the Russian army from penetrating American-held territory.

On or about May 9, 1945, Col. Reed received a message from Third Army Headquarters that Gen. Patton had been in contact with Col. Podhajsky, head of the Spanish Riding School. Reed was informed that Podhajsky was at St. Martin in Austria with the Lipizzaner stallions. The message went on to tell Reed that Podhajsky would be flown up to his headquarters at Zinkovy as soon as practical to check the breeding mares and to have them join the stallions in Austria.

Meanwhile, Reed had reason to want to move the horses.

On or around May 14, 1945, Col. Podhajsky flew into Zinkovy on an American plane, where he spent the night and dined with Col. Reed and his staff. Plans were made for the breeding herd to be returned to Col. Podhajsky at St. Martin's as soon as practical. The next day Reed and Podhajsky drove to Schwarzenberg, where the Riding School's director pointed out the horses of the Fiber herd. Podhajsky was very pleased with their condition.

Col. Reed arranged for two convoys on May 18 and 25, 1945, to return the Piber herd to Podhajsky at St. Martin in Austria, a distance that required the Lipizzaners to be transported by trucks that were refitted as best they could to carry horses. The trip was difficult and a few mares were injured; two suffered broken legs and were destroyed. Two hundred and fifteen Lipizzaners arrived at St. Martin. The arrival of the breeding mares ensured the future of the Austrian Lipizzaner stallions and the 200-year-old tradition of the Spanish Riding School.

"The remaining horses," recalled Reed, "were later transferred to the large and most suitable German horse breeding establishment of a remount depot in Hessia. This included the Arabians, racing horses, the Yugoslavian Lipizzaners and a number of the Cossack horses. Since all were war booty of the American Army, the best of these and other captured animals were later shipped to the United States for use by the U.S. Remount Service."

In appreciation of Gen. Patton's personal involvement on behalf of the Spanish Riding School, the Austrians presented him with a white stallion named Pluto XX and several mares, which he sent back to the United States.

Seven months after the Lipizzaner stallions and the Fiber herd were reunited in Austria, on December 21, 1945, Patton died in Heidelberg, Germany after an automobile accident. Col. Reed of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group commanded the guard of honor at Patton's funeral.

Of the many famous photographs of Patton taken before his death, there was one of him in Salzburg, Austria, on a white horse. It showed Patton in uniform and helmet proudly astride a magnificent Lipizzaner stallion named Favory Africa. The Lipizzaner had been chosen by Adolf Hitler as a present for Japan's Emperor Hirohito, a gift that Patton had made sure was never delivered.