I have memories of many wonderful summers over the years, but perhaps the most extraordinary one was around 1962. I had a very eccentric bachelor uncle and he asked my parents if he could take me away to Austria. I was horse mad, he had contacts with the Lipizzaner breeding and training programme and management in Austria, where they are bred. We went for only a few days but it felt like forever to me at the time. It was the most extraordinary experience. He and I sat in the vast expanse of the acres of mountainside where the young teenage horses, along with Haflinger ponies, where left to toughen up. We had a picnic in the grass. I remember the horses stampeding around us, the ponies play fighting, the rearing up of the horses. all too wonderful. It was actually very dangerous probably to be surrounded by a herd of these wild horses, but I, and my uncle, loved it. We were taken around the breeding grounds, saw new born foals, heard the neighing of the foals when they were weaned and separated from their mothers, saw the careful charts to make sure there was no in breeding. We also went to the training area where the young stallions were first started on their road to performance level. Finally we went to Vienna and saw the final performance of all this effort. None of this would be allowed today, especially to someone like me who is not involved in any way with the programme. It was magical and I do not remember one drop of rain the whole time. At the end my uncle bought me a book on the Lippizaner's; which I read and re read for many years. I was probably 15 at the time, and today, whoever I tell this story to, no one believes me! It was a magical summer and certainly a unique and never to be forgotten experience. My uncle lived on to a ripe old age and although he lived abroad, would always come back to visit, once turning up at my doorstep with a huge rocking horse for my young children, unannounced!
