I am one of those girls that has been obsessed with horses since birth. I begged and begged for riding lessons until my parents finally caved when I was 9 years old. During my very first lesson, at which point I weighed probably around 70 pounds dripping wet, I rode a humongous draft cross named Flurry. I never forget a horse’s name. People’s names, I forget all the time, horses, never.

Well big old Flurry could barely feel me up on his back and decided it would be a great time to roll over. He started going down to one side and my left foot was stuck in the stirrup until he almost hit the ground. He would have rolled right over me if I hadn’t been able to get my foot loose and jump out and away at the last second. After he rolled over, he proceeded to run around the ring like a complete maniac until the trainers could catch him and fix his girth, which he had busted during his freak out running spree. Looking back on that, I can only imagine my mom watching this go down. Her heart must have been in her throat. I’m sure she wanted to get me out of there and put a stop to my riding. However, I was so determined to ride and had waiting so long to do it, that I got right back up on Flurry. I wasn’t going to let him mess up my very first lesson and my dream of riding horses.

Also around that time, my grandmother “Nana” took me to see the Lippizzan stallions of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna for the first time. They were touring that year in the states and had a stop in Chicago. She and my grandfather were world travelers and had seen them perform in Europe and she knew I’d love them. She was right. Since then, I have seen Lippizzan stallions perform several times right here in Illinois because we are lucky enough to have Tempel Farms right here near Chicago. Tempel Farms houses and trains the largest privately owned herd of Lippizzans in the world. I went to go see them again this past August.

The shows always start with the youngest of the herd, the new crop of foals come into the show ring with their mothers. Lippizzans are born with dark coats that eventually turn white or grey as they mature. The foals run and leap around and you can see their natural jumping ability already, which gets harnessed later on in life during their extensive training which starts at age 4.

Then the stallions start coming into the ring to perform dressage which is sometimes referred to as “ballet on horseback”. Highly choreographed moves with single or multiple horses performing in unison.

There is also a demonstration of long rein work, where trainers walk beside the horse and give it signals from the ground.

The “airs above ground” are also demonstrated. These take years for a stallion to learn, and were originally moves used by war horses on the battleground.

A rare bay stallion was also performing some of the very advanced air above ground maneuvers:

Another advanced move is the levade. The horse rears up on its hind legs with or without a rider:

After the show you can tour the beautiful barn, seriously so nice and tastefully decorated I’d happily live in it 🙂 Go check it out! I think it’s definitely something that even people who aren’t obsessed with horses could really enjoy and appreciate.