The Perfect Horse prevails
The Perfect Horse takes readers on a hair-raising ride through the rescue of the Lipizzaner stallions from Nazi Germany in the fraught closing days of WWII.
In The Perfect Horse, author Elizabeth Letts reveals how the revered white Lipizzaner stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Polish Arabians and Thoroughbred race horses were rescued during the waning days of World War II. Through constant peril, war-weary soldiers delivered from harm a spectacular assemblage of Europe’s venerated horses. Officers from each side of WWII’s conflict had fallen under the spell of the Spanish Riding School‘s dancing white Lipizzaner horses and the mesmerizing Polish Arabians. A band of real-life cowboys, polo-players and Olympic medalists serving as Army officers conspired to bring the horses to safety.
The journey of the white stallions is in memoirs, children’s books and Disney’s The Miracle of the White Stallions. Letts’ The Perfect Horse raises the narrative bar. Applying her skills as a researcher, storyteller and horsewoman, Letts provides context that makes this account spellbinding.
Think of what a great film The Perfect Horse will be. Monument Men meets War Horse meets Inglorious Bastards, but better because it’s about horses. In fact, Lett’s children nicknamed her book project, “Saving Private Horse.”
In a sweeping arc, The Perfect Horse spans the glory of the Lipizzaners’ history in Vienna, to the sinister Third Reich plan to engineer the perfect eugenic Aryan horse. The stories in The Perfect Horse converge when Allied and Axis troops on the ground risk their lives to save the horses.
Old-school cavalry officers to the rescue
The Perfect Horse jacket designed by Marietta Anastassatos.
When America entered World War II, the Army’s newly mechanized 2nd Cavalry left their horses home. However, at the helm of the new motorized Army were alumni of the Cavalry’s legendary riding school. Those men were warriors, soldier-horsemen to the core.
General George Patton, commander in Chief of the Third Army (U.S.), cut his teeth in the Cavalry. He was an Olympian and life-long horseman. When presented with the plight of the Lipizzaner stallions, Patton watched a performance by Colonel Alois Podhajsky and his Spanish Riding School masters and their stallions. He granted them protection and asylum immediately.
Around the same time, the commanding officer of the 2nd Cavalry, Colonel Charles “Hank” Reed, was on the Czech border, awaiting action. Through backdoor negotiations, the Germans sought Reed’s protection of the Hostau farm’s hundreds of Lipizzaner, Arabian and Thoroughbred horses. The Czech farm was in the path of the Russian Army that slaughtered livestock, regardless of pedigree, to feed its troops.
Emissaries from each side, crossed back and forth, by horse and motorcycle, behind their enemy’s lines. Artful finagling concluded with protection for the Hostau horses. Once Reed agreed to crossing into Czechoslovakia he knew he was at risk of provoking international tensions. The American presence in Hostau was in territory ceded to Russia.
Ignoring political consequences, the 2nd Cavalry took control of the farm. Reed had the horses moved behind U.S. lines, pronto.
The dancing Lipizzaner stallions continue
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Today the Lipizzaner stallions at Vienna’s Spanish Riding School are testament to the will of the Allied and Axis officers. Elizabeth Lett’s The Perfect Horse takes us on a boots-on-the-ground march across war-wracked Europe. We witness the time when the Army put aside politics to save those singular treasures – the horses.