A dramatic wartime movie depicting Vienna’s famous Spanish Riding School and featuring the school’s actual Lipizzaner stallions still stands up 60 years after it was made, if only for the exquisite dressage scenes.
Col. Alois Podhajsky, former director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.
In 1945 it was known as Operation Cowboy; in 1963, it became a Disney movie. Miracle of the White Stallions (aka The Flight of the White Stallions), is loosely based on a unique wartime evacuation, starring Robert Taylor, a popular leading man of the time.
Taylor, who had made many westerns and was regarded as a capable horseman, played Austrian Army officer Colonel Alois Podhajsky, director of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. The film, directed by Arthur Hiller, portrays the efforts made to save the school’s Lipizzaners from the ravages of World War II, to protect them from starving refugees and enemy soldiers.
TRIVIA
This would be Hiller’s only Disney picture. In 1970 his film ‘Love Story’ would turn into a phenomenon which catapulted him to the A-list.
In the waning months of the war, Colonel Podhajsky had feared for the fate of the Spanish Riding School’s prized stallions, as well as for the future of the school itself, which was directly threatened by Allied bombings. And many of the Lipizzaners were indirectly imperilled by the likelihood of the advancing Soviet Army eating them as it moved through Czechoslovakia, where some of the horses were being sheltered. (After the annexation of Austria to Germany in 1938, the school’s breeding mares and some stallions had been transferred to an experimental farm at Hostau, a Nazi-occupied village in Czechoslovakia. The goal was to create a race of “Aryan horses”!).
Hoping to surrender them into safekeeping, Podhajsky sought out George S. Patton, a US General and noted horse fancier. He persuaded Patton to watch a performance at the school after which he pleaded that the US Army help protect the horses. Patton agreed, saying to his men “go get them and make it fast”.
Patton had come from a wealthy and distinguished family and ridden since a child. Commissioned into the cavalry, he had represented America in the first modern pentathlon at the 1912 Swedish Olympics, which consisted of five events including show jumping. He was a top instructor in the cavalry and during wartime always wore breeches and top boots with his uniform. (Patton was an Academy award-winning picture in 1970 starring George C. Scott).
In Disney’s Miracle of the White Stallions, Patton was played by John Larch, a radio, film and TV actor.
“It struck me as strange. Twenty young men in great physical condition spending their lives teaching horses to wiggle their butts and raise their feet.” George S. Patton’s diary.
The film begins in a rather uninspiring fashion featuring equestrian footage accompanied by narration and tinny, sickly music. Like so many “true to life” movies it is riddled with fictional elements, but many horse lovers enjoyed it and were unaware or forgiving of the inconsistencies.
One of the most active men behind the successful evacuation was Hubert Rudovsky but he didn’t rate a mention in the script. (In 1986 he received a certificate from the Austrian minister of agriculture thanking him for his efforts in saving the Lipizzaners).
Disney made small alterations such as exchanging the factual brown jackets in the last of the riders’ classical performances for flashy red ones. Also, the SS uniforms were not authentic. The soldiers had stopped wearing black after 1938; Operation Cowboy was in 1945. It is unlikely moviegoers noticed or cared.
Robert Taylor as Col. Podhajsky, at the Spanish Riding School. Image supplied.
“In the exterior scenes… not a single
Austrian Lipizzaner was used.”
‘Miracle of the White Stallions’ film poster.
In the exterior scenes of Miracle of the White Stallions not a single Austrian Lipizzaner was used. The authorities resisted the idea of the horses being herded for a second time to depict their flight to the free world, so Walt Disney, with gritted right-wing teeth, signed a rental contract with Yugoslavia’s communist president Marshall Tito for 163 of the breed.
In the final cut there is this galloping mob from Yugoslavia, filmed from speeding jeeps and low-flying aircraft. The animals were then returned safely to their homeland with a couple of extra ones – two mares had foaled on location!
Filming of ‘The Flight’ with the Yugoslavian horses.
“It’s probably wrong to let any highly developed art, however fatuous, perish from the earth and which arts are fatuous depends on the point of view. To me the high schooling of horses is more interesting than painting and music.” George S. Patton.
All equestrian action was choreographed by Podhajsky, who was the film’s consultant. Robert Taylor took personal lessons from him before, and during, shooting but was only filmed on horseback for still shots and close-ups. He, and fellow actor Eddie Albert (Otto), were the only mounted ones who weren’t Spanish Riding School riders. In footage of the horses and riders performing the quadrille dance sequence, Podhajsky leads the riders. You can tell the difference in horses because Robert Taylor, playing the master, is on a stallion whose mane and tail were white – Podhajsky rides a younger one whose mane and tail were still grey.
“The stallions are the real stars of this movie,” American film critic Adam Jahnke says on his website Jahnke’s Electric Theatre. “Classical dressage is an extremely specialised skill and director Hiller uses it sparingly, treating it almost like a special effect. The film builds up to an extended performance and it’s genuinely impressive. If you had any doubts that these horses and traditions were worth preserving, this sequence alone dispels them.”
Horse Nation also commended the triumphant dance scene towards the end in a 2014 review: “The equestrianism, scenery and historical props more than made up for small inconsistencies. The riding was superb as it was performed by the actual riders of the Spanish Riding School and the last 10 minutes alone are worth the watch.”
RUCTIONS AT THE SCHOOL
Although based in Vienna, the Spanish Riding School is named as such because it is the only institution in the world that preserves the classical art of the ‘haute école’ begun in the Renaissance. It stems from the Spanish horses, which were the ancestors of the Lipizzaners and much sought after in the royal court at that time.
Earlier this year a petition calling for major changes to the management of the Spanish Riding School received almost 12,000 signatures. It was started by classical trainer Alfons J. Dietz, who was based at the Spanish Riding School as a rider for eight years, and follows the departure of chief rider Andreas Hausberger, who was reportedly dismissed in March 2023 after 40 years with the school. His departure came three months after Alfred Hudler was appointed its managing director.
The petition calls to “stop the destruction of the school” and states “if we don’t act now, we will lose this cultural heritage item forever”. It asks for an “expert leader deeply rooted in classical horsemanship” to be appointed, for the Spanish Riding School to come under the Austrian Ministry of Culture – instead of the Ministry of Agriculture as it presently is – and for the return of retired chief riders.
“It’s all about horsemanship, an expression of human culture,” said Dietz. “It wasn’t for nothing the Spanish Riding School was included in the UNESCO list. The school can’t be run like a normal farm with a focus on profit.” He believes it should be managed similarly to a museum or the Vienna State Opera House, which receives funding from the Austrian government.
Earlier this year a petition calling for major changes to the management of the Spanish Riding School received almost 12,000 signatures. Image by Dorte Tuladhar.
For a more comprehensive coverage of Operation Cowboy and the history of the Lipizzaner, read Brother Mendel’s Perfect Horse by Frank Westerman, 2012.
Miracle of the White Stallions is 118 minutes long and distributed by Buena Vista. It is available on DVD and various streaming services.
Next month, Of Horses and Men (2013), a festival-winning film from Iceland. EQ
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