Mercury's Flight - The Story of a Lipizzaner Stallion by Annie Wedekind

Author:Annie Wedekind
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781250120380
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

CHAPTER 7

The spring of 1939 was remarkably beautiful. The heavy, sweet smell of the chestnut trees perfumed the Sommerreitschule during our evening strolls, and the doves and blackbirds whirled in the fragile gray-blue of the evening sky. I loved when it was our turn in the courtyard—we trained there, too, of course, but I especially prized my hours of liberty, surrounded by the timeless arches. I had my own fancies, my own memories, though their clarity faded with each passing year at Die Spanische. I liked to conjure up the feeling of solitude I had relished on my mountainside. I had little chance, in my new life, to maintain the position I most preferred: that of belonging to a herd, and to people, but having the luxury to observe them from some distance. To not mix so much, to put it bluntly. Here I was forced into community—a community I mostly loved, to be sure, but still … there were moments when I very much wished to be by myself.

Horses do not like change. We are sentimental and steadfast, stubborn and of limited imagination. We prefer safety, routine, and a comfortable amount of freedom. To a certain degree, we can be made to fight cavalry charges as long as we have our familiar brush and a bucket of oats—on the other hand, we can become neurotics. It comes down to trust. I trusted Max and Oberbereiter Polak, and I loved a handful of the horses in my stable, so there was little chance I would turn sour. More, I usually found our near-daily forty-five-minute training sessions invigorating. I had bad days, to be sure, but Max was so scrupulously careful to end our sessions on a good note—in essence, to restore my pride even when I had bungled badly—that my low moods never lasted long.

Other horses did not fare as well. I’ve spoken of the psychological transformations that were such necessary ingredients to our training: making common cause with our riders, making peace with our elegant confinement. Over the course of my early years at Die Spanische, I witnessed a handful of transformations gone awry, or made incompletely … or not at all. Some stallions simply couldn’t be brought on board, so to speak, and they expressed their unsuitableness for life at the school in ways ranging from the emphatic (throwing riders, fighting with other horses) to the quiet (going off their feed, becoming dull and listless). These horses were not allowed to remain miserable—they were sold, shipped back to Piber, or gelded and given other work. I saw these things happen, or heard about them, and did not think deeply about any of it, except to be glad that I continued in my own way to prove my worth and so was not dismissed. No, the careful culling of our ranks did not disturb me … until it happened, though under different circumstances, to Galant. To Ned.

It was a confusing time at Die Spanische … in the world, I suspect.

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