Reflections on Lipizzan Mares

I've spent a lot of time lately working with three younger mares, one somewhat green under saddle, one getting ready to be backed, and the youngest just starting her training. They're all strong, athletic, talented ladies, as they would be: they're Lipizzans. They're also reminding me every day of the peculiar challenges that go with this breed and this gender.

I'm a mare person. By the luck of the draw, every horse I've ever gone out and bought has been a mare. My boys were born here--bred, or bought in utero along with Mom. Most of my homebreds have been fillies, and that's exactly how I like it. When I place my order, in general I ask for the indoor plumbing.

And yet, there's this persistent rumble under the surface of the breed. The mares have a rep. The boys are the easy ones, relatively speaking: gentler, kinder, less difficult to train. It's not just that the ladies are too valuable as broodmares to take the time to turn them into dressage horses. It's that they're too opinionated to be worth the trouble.

I'll be fair. There's a grain of truth in that. I've seen difficult stallions and geldings, too--oh, have I. But for the most part, when the Bad Lipizzan stories go the rounds, they'll feature a mare. The kindest of them opines that, well, they're just motherly, you know? They resent any time taken away from the vital job of raising babies. If you absolutely insist, they may give in, but you'll be constantly pushing against the mare's conviction that Mother Knows Best.

Here's the truth: She usually does.

Lipizzans are hardwired for dressage. Four hundred and fifty years of selective breeding will do that. The trouble is, very few people outside of Vienna have a clear sense of what dressage is.

Dressage in the wider world is proactive and often aggressive. It's something you expect to have to teach a horse. You come in assuming the horse doesn't know how to move or balance correctly under a rider, and prepared to do whatever it takes to show him. That will include dealing with a persistent tendency to go on the forehand, countering a catalogue of resistances that are presumed to be normal and expected, and generally doing things that will, it's assumed, help him arrive at correctness that is not in fact natural to him.

For a Lipizzan, it is natural. He starts there. He has to learn to balance under you, and he certainly has to develop himself gymnastically and physically in order to do it. But he's born knowing how to collect and how to perform the movements of the high school. Your job as a trainer is to help him incorporate you into the equation, and then get out of his way so he can do what he knew how to do all along.

The stallion or gelding will let you know he's ahead of you in the game, and he may get cranky if you don't pay attention to what he's saying. He's a highly intelligent, highly sensitive, finely tuned machine. But at base he's a gentle animal. He wants to cooperate. He's been selected for centuries for that precise trait, that trainability that isn't particularly amenable to modern methods, but follow the old ways and he's there for you.

The mare? Oh, she is, too. But she isn't coming from quite the same place when it comes to cooperation. She's a tougher sell. She has much more finely calibrated idiot filters, and from her point of view, most humans are too dim to live. If (and it's a big if) she decides you're worth paying attention to, she'll take it under advisement. But she's not going to do it just, you know, because.

This does not play well in the world of horse trainers who must be obeyed. If the trainer is positive that he knows better than the horse (and I've met very few who weren't), and the horse has other ideas, it's war. A Lipizzan mare is a War Mare. She may not win, but she'll give it her best shot.

Even if you don't march in with your I'M THE TRAINER THAT'S WHY hat on, your Lipizzan mare won't be an easy customer. She's tough. She's always thinking. She knows she's the pinnacle of the universe, and here's this tottery little primate trying to tell her she has to do what she's told. Worse, especially for a young mare who's just getting used to the whole hormone thing, said primate wants to Do Stuff with HER BODY.

That's hers, damn it. Especially the sides and flanks. And those back legs. Don't touch them. Really. Don't. You insist? Fine, see how you like a pop in the chops.

Doesn't matter if she's been handled extensively since the moment she was born, taught manners and deportment every day of her life. She's still in charge, and that's her very own special self you're taking liberties with. You had better ask, and you can expect to negotiate.

You're not going to get submission in the sense of giving in on principle to the master's will. But obedience: that, you can get. You have to earn it. You'll discuss it early and often. She'll contest every carefully calibrated step, and you'd better be prepared with a clear set of training goals and a lot of flexibility as to how you get there.

She'll give you a headache pushing at you, challenging you, thinking in your direction. If you push back too hard, you'll lose her. But you can't be too soft, either, or she'll take over. It's a constant balancing act.

The key is communication. Always be aware of her. Listen to her. Pay attention to what she says. I've never met a Lipizzan mare who was in any way lazy, though I've known some trainers who called certain mares that. What those mares were was inclined to shut down when pushed too hard, and that shutdown came across as sluggishness. It wasn't. And inevitably, sooner or later, she'd hit her limit, and she'd blow. Then it would get ugly.

From those mares, I've learned my most important mantra: LESS IS MORE. If she's not listening, instead of getting stronger, I go for softer. Quieter. Clear and focused and as precise as I can get it, but a whisper, so soft I might almost think she wouldn't hear it--if I didn't know from experience that for her it's as loud as a shout.

She's tuned to a frequency many humans aren't even aware of. She can detect tiny shifts of weight or balance, and pick up minute signals. And being what she is, she's downright obsessive about her balance. Any small shift, before she's confident in her ability to carry herself and you, can throw her off.

She will and can learn to tolerate human clumsiness and "loud" aids and signals (in which loud equals very light in normal horse terms). As she matures in her training, provided that training is correct, she'll become notably more accommodating, and she'll stop being goosey and titchy. Like her brothers and sons, she wants to cooperate; it's bred in. She just isn't as inclined to put up with what she sees as the stupid.

The amazing thing is that, once she gets through the difficult early stages, there are few better lesson or therapeutic horses than a Lipizzan mare. A mature mare, well trained and fully trusting of humans, is an incredible teacher and partner. The same mare who, in her youth, would turn around and bite a leg that had shifted an inch or two farther back than she strictly liked, will tolerate a remarkable amount of rider error, and carry on without impatience or frustration until the rider finally figures out what to do.

Of course if the rider has an inflated opinion of his own abilities, the Lipizzan will delight in popping the balloon. But she'll do it with the best of intentions, and even a sense of humor--and if he's open to hearing what she has to say, she'll happily teach him all she knows.

With a Lipizzan mare, you have to earn her respect. She doesn't just give it to you because you're the human, or the trainer, or the boss. But once she does give it, she's yours. There's no more loyal or dedicated partner, and no better friend.

If she also decides that you belong to her--that you're her person--she'll go through fire for you. She may let you know just how dumb you were for getting into that predicament in the first place, but she'll be there and she'll get you through it. After all, that's what a mother does.