A Stallion’s Life

“White Beauty – A Stallion’s Life”is a film about the oldest domesticated breed of horse to be found anywhere in the world. With breath-taking photography this is the first time that the complete story of the world-famous white stallions of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna has been told in detail. The film tells of the horses’ ancestry in North Africa, to the conquest by the Moors of a large part of what is today Spain, to how the Lipizzaner horse became the symbol of European Nobility.

Our story begins almost a thousand years ago in North Africa when the warrior tribes that are now called the Berbers lived and roamed through the deserts and hills of what is now Morocco. For them the horse symbolises freedom, beauty, strength and power, and their horsemanship was legendary.  The Berber warriors were the perfect example of ‘man and animal working together in perfect harmony’.

Today that perfect harmony between horse and rider can still be witnessed at the Spanish Riding School. Thankfully, the times of war are now past, but the power and majesty of the horse is still strong in the human mind. For centuries these horses were the proud symbols of European nobility, and over time the horse that was once a warrior became a king.

This intriguing documentary takes us behind the scenes of the Riding School and reveals the private lives of these white stars away from the glamour and rigor of Vienna’s Hofburg. We are given a privileged insight into the close and tight bond between a mare and her foal, until the heartbreaking moment when the foals are weaned and must be separated from their mothers. We also see a stallion as he goes to his ‘first day at school’ at the training centre at Heldenberg in Lower Austria to follow in the footsteps of generations of stallions before him. And we are present when a Lipizzaner finally goes into a well-deserved retirement away from the arena.