Spanish Riding School – Vienna

The Spanish Riding School in Vienna is one of THE top attractions of the city. Getting tickets usually requires booking up to six weeks in advance. Every guidebook makes a big deal about seeing the famous Lipizzaner stallions during their performance. Though the horses and riders are stunning in every way, the performance was forced into boredom because of the unnecessary length of the show.

The Lipizzaner are horses that are born dark brown/black and turn complete white over the course of their first ten years of life. They are beautiful creatures that are paired with the best horse riders in the world to show off the strength and perfection of both the horse and the rider. It really is breath-taking when a rider without stirrups convinces a white stallion to rear up on its hind legs and jump two feet off of the ground. The horse and rider also perform difficult steps, jumps, and other moves to classical music from Mozart.

The only problem is that the show was set up with too much detail. It was a gruelling hour and a half. After 45 minutes, the audience was sighing, shifting in their seats, and having a hard time paying attention. Don’t get me wrong, when the horses and their riders did something stunning, the audience broke out in appreciative applause as one should at such a display of perfection. But the show needs to be cut shorter. An hour and a half is just too long. 45 minutes would have been fine. Appreciation turns to boredom and an audience member like me comes away from the experience thinking, well that was just too bad.

So here’s a shout out to the people that organize the Spanish Riding School’s show. Cut it shorter, let the horse and rider show off their gasp-inducing stunts, and let the audience go to a coffeehouse while they are still babbling with excitement about the Lipizzaner and their riders.