White Stallion of Lipizza

Ah, what can I say about such an important book in my life? Hans is a poor boy who dreams of riding dressage with the Spanish Riding School of his native Vienna. He attains his goal through hard work and perseverance, by his own merit and against the odds. The book is beautifully written with a flowing narrative style, engaging for both adults and children. The illustrations are the best I have seen from Dennis, at times humorous, at times scholarly, and always precise.I did my senior thesis on the birth of dressage in the Renaissance, but without this book I would never have even heard of Xenophon, or the passage, or known that the Ancient Greeks rode without stirrups. I illustrated it with my own copies of Wesley Dennis's drawings from this book.Also highly recommended as horsey history, "Gaudenzia, Pride of the Palio" by the same writer/illustrator team.If you would like to find out more about Classical dressage please check out Laura Camins's "Glorious Horsemen" and Walter Leitdke's "Royal Horse and Rider," both of which deal with the birth of dressage in the Renaissance according to modern scholarship, and by extension the noble equestrian ballets of which the Spanish Riding school is the last still extant. Did you know that the Louvre's great central courtyard was designed to accommodate horse ballets exactly like those in this book? When I first read this book, when I was about seven years old, I owned a Lipizzan mare of my own. She was for me what Borina was to Hans, my schoolmaster. She was small and gray, with a wide girth, branded, and very long lived. She would do caprioles as we galloped through the field, I kid you not. Were it not for this book I would not have the words to describe her, to remember her like this, and so I am indebted Marguerite Henry. To bring one spark of beauty into the world is worth a life's dedication, is it not? Certainly mine.Read the book and you will understand.

This book is great! I loved the wonderful drawing of the Lipizaners and more.It is a sweet story about a boy named Hans and his horse Rosie. This book shows how if you really want something and work for it you could probably get it. (P.S. you have *got* to read it!)

Wonderful story of a poor boy that is a son of a baker in Austria. He longs to see the Lippian horses perform their beautiful dressage ballet movements. He teaches his old cart mare to carry herself with pride and gets notice by the Spanish Riding School that trains the Lippizanners. He gets a job there doing exactly what he loves-riding for a living. This book teaches that hard work and passion for your work pays off. It also teaches that dreams can come true. It teaches horsemanship down to the smallest detail. I highly recommend this book. I can not believe that it is out of print-I wanted to carry on the tradition and buy it for my daughter now that we have a horse. Good Reading!

when hans' father dies hans has to find work. and he loves lippizans, they mystify him. so he gets a job at the riding school in vienna as an apprentice. he goes through grueling work for five years, and learns the secrets of lippizans. he learns the courbette, and does something no one had done with borina in nearly a decade! gets five courbettes! soon hans becames a full fledged riding master, and lives out borina's days.