The Lipizzan is a breed of horses developed in Austria especially for dressage, a type of training in which the horse moves precisely and beautifully, lifting its legs high. They perform these movements to beautiful music; click to hear the music they dance to. The Lipizzans also perform special movements known as "airs above the ground", in which they leap into the air on command, sometimes landing on their hind legs then leaping again and again (courbette, pictured at left), and sometimes leaping up and then kicking backward (capriolle). They are called by some "the dancing white stallions", for almost all Lipizzans turn nearly white by the time the are fully grown, and in their beautiful Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria, only the stallions perform. The mares are kept for breeding, as there are only a few thousand pure Lipizzans left in the world. The original horses came from Spain, from which the school took its name.

During World War II, only ten Lipizzans were at the Spanish Riding School. Some had been captured by the Nazis, and others had been taken into hiding. Colonel Alois Podhajsky, the master of the Spanish Riding School, managed to convince a German officer to let him put the treasures of the Riding School and the ten stallions onto a train so that they could escape the bombing of Vienna. It took a whole week for the stallions to reach safety, because the train tracks were often bombed, and they had to pause for the tracks to be repaired. Finally,the stallions found refuge in an old castle in St. Martin im Innkreis.

However, there were other Lipizzans yet to be rescued. In 1945 in Czechoslovakia, there was a whole herd of stallions, mares and foals behind Nazi lines. Colonel Podhajsky spoke with the American General Patton, who was a horseman himself. He arranged for their rescue. He sent Colonel Charles H. Reed and his troops to the border where they fought a swift battle and broke through the Nazi lines. They rounded up the herd of Lipizzans and brought them to safety across the frontier.

Because so much of Vienna was destroyed during the war, the Lipizzans could not return to their magnificent Spanish Riding School until 1955, when at last, they gave a beautiful performance to music celebrating their return.

Walt Disney made the movie "The Miracle of the White Stallions" about their rescue. Another good movie about Lipizzans is "Florian". Lipizzans were used in the great chariot race scene in the movie "Ben Hur", and have performed in circuses all around the world, as well as in horse shows and the Olympics. And today, the white stallions still dance to music in the Spanish Riding School of Vienna.