Mistover and the Lipizzaner Stallions of
the Spanish Riding School of Vienna
The first thing to understand about Mistover is it’s not just a barn, it’s a community. For one weekend in November this community of dressage enthusiasts traveled to Washington, D.C. to see the Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna on their US tour.
We congregated on Saturday, November 19th at a wonderful bed and breakfast, The Dupont at the Circle, located just off the circle of the same name. Our group, including: Jayne, Sam, Carol, her daughter Jan, Maria Fisher, Cindy Rubin, Julie Atherton, Deb Choma, Sharon Grelsamer and her son Marc, had the run of an immense double brownstone of Victorian vintage. At the performance itself we were joined by Anita Zander and Barbara Thanhauser.
It’s rare enough to come across perfection in this world, but when you find it in the horse world, you’re really fortunate. We experienced perfection that evening in the form of the magnificent stallions and the riders who have trained them. Our front-row seats gave us the ability to take in all the details the truly obsessed enjoy. Where to begin? The stallions displayed consistent collection in every gait, in every movement, from beginning to end. The program began with the steps and movements of the Classical School, and then progressed to a Pas de Deux, work on both the short and long reins, and to the mounted schools above the ground. Of course the airs above the ground are dramatic crowd pleasers, but the knowledgeable audience applauded just as loud for the stallion Conversano Dagmar and his rider Andreas Hausberger who preformed all the movements of the Classical School on the long rein. Imagine walking close behind your own mount as he’s doing tempi changes that you are directing with only two long reins! The program concluded with a single horse doing all the Classical School movements with one hand on the reins, and finally the school quadrille—really a double quadrille with eight mounts. It all flowed seemingly effortlessly.
That prefect blend of strength and relaxation demonstrated by the riders was something I’ll always remember. There was also their complete professionalism—we only caught one of the youngest riders making eye contact with the crowd; the rest had their soft eyes forward, and were absolutely focused on their mounts.
When I returned home I found the program from a performance of the Spanish Riding School I had attended in Vienna 31 years ago with my late Mother. Needless to say, it’s the same show, as that program’s sequence matched the one we saw. But there is more to the story. I happened to note that the senior rider at our performance, Chief Rider Klaus Krzisch, had been the most junior Assistant Rider at that long-ago performance in Vienna. That is how Chief Rider Krzisch and his horses achieve such perfection, by working together, in harmony, every day, for decades.
Maria Fisher
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