"My grandparents had a big white horse on their farm in Virginia. When I saw this horse, I just put my arms out. I always thought horses should be big and white."
She bought her first lipizzan out of a slaughter-house in northern New Jersey 15 years ago. Now she owns six lipizzans and is in the business of selling them at her farm in Wellington, Villa Lipizza.
"I am an interior designer," Simpson said. "My horses are a hobby, but they are taking over my life."
Even non-horse people have some mental picture of lipizzans. They are equated with the dancing white horses of the circus, and lipizzans have been shown performing their famous airs above the ground -- it's hard to forget an image of white horses lunging into the air and kicking out their hind legs. "That's called the Capriole.", Simpson said.
"It was conceived of as a battle movement. They can also exexute an air called the lavad. That's where they stand on their hind legs and tuck in their front feet."
Austrian nobility first bred lipizzans in the 1500's for the cavalry and for the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. Lipizzans are genetically a type of gray. "They are bron black or bay, but they normally lighten and become white by the time they are 6 or 7," Simpson said.
The Spanish Riding School's primary purpose is to preserve the art of classical horsemanship, and it uses lipizzans, as they are capable of classically performing all movements of dressage including airs above the ground.
There are only a few hundred lipizzans in the United States. The U.S. Army obtained some as spoils of war in 1945. The 1964 Walt Disney movie, Miracle of the White Stallions, tells the story of the army's involvement with the Spanish Riding School and its lipizzans. Gen. Patton arranged for the rescue of lipizzan mares and foals when the Allied prisoners were freed at Hostau, Czechoslavakia, in 1945.
Christina Davis
"I had my horse, Conversano II Destina, in Ocala at a show when an older couple
approached us," Simpson recalls. "The husband asked if he could touch my
horse. He told me the last time he'd touched one was with Patton when
the horses were rescued.
"Another
group of early arrivals here were gifts from Austria to an Austrian-born
opera singer, Maria Jeritza," Simpson said. "Also, Temple and Esther
Smith started importing them. Most of the horses in the United States
have some Temple Farm blood."
Lipizzans
have excellent personalities, are very smart and trainable, but you need
to be extra patient to work with them, she said.
"You
have to be quiet and consistent. You can't be rough with them. If you
lose your temper with them, you'll never get close to them again."
But
they are loving and thoughtful. They will give 150 percent and have been
bred selectively to be people pleasers."
Her
first stallion, Major Tagg, is now retired. Her stallion, Conversano II
Destina has a great show record, she said. "He held the Gold Coast
Dressage highest score of 80.256 in 2001 at lower levels. He came in
sixth in the southeast United States for the USDF (United States
Dressage Federation) Breeders Series."
Simpson
also has one of the lipizzans that did not change colors. It's unusual
for a horse to remain dark. There's only a handful alive at a given
time, she explains.
"It's a good luck
charm if such a horse is born in your barn, and it's said that if
there's no dark horse at the Spanish Riding School, catastrophes
happen."
She'llbe taking her new
gelding, Pluto Delphina, to shows next season, and she plans to continue
to show Conversano II Destina.
"I want
him to advance," she said of the stallion. "I'm not saying I need to be
at the Prix St. George level or I'll die, though. I just want to have
fun showing my horses."
Shannon Rogers Simpson will take her new gelding, Pluto Delphina to shows next season.
Christina Davis writes about horses for
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