- April 26, 2024
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Buried deep in Myakka City, about 20 minutes from the nearest grocery store, sits a black, wrought-iron gate.
Behind it, you won’t find a grandiose ranch house nor a sprawling plantation home. Instead, you’ll stumble upon a quaint family farm chock-full of history and stocked with one of the world’s rarest breeds of horse.
As you drive onto the property of Herrmanns’ Royal Lipizzan Stallions, you’ll most likely be met by a curious corgi and a smile from owner Gabriella Herrmann.
Herrmann is the current proprietor of the family legacy — breeding and showing Lipizzan stallions — a trade that has been in the family for nearly 300 years.
Although the family is now in its sixth generation as performers, Lipizzans wouldn’t be the family trade without a gratuitous gift, the intervention of the U.S. Army and a generations-long passion for dressage.
First developed by the Habsburg monarchy for its use in the 16th century, the Lipizzan is one of Europe’s oldest breed of horses.
The Hapsburg family controlled both Spain and Austria when classical riding was revived during the Renaissance. Around then, both military members and classical riding school students were in need of a light, fast horse.
Habsburg Emperor Maximilian II brought the Spanish Andalusian horse to Austria and founded the court stud while his brother, Archduke Charles II, established a similar stud at Lipizza. The established breed was only to be used by those in power.
“Nobody could see the Lipizzans,” Herrmann says. “They were only for royalty, heads of state, dignitaries. People knew about them, but not very many people saw them.”
The Lipizzan stud farm remained a possession of the Habsburg monarchy until 1916, when the horses were evacuated due to World War I. After World War I, central Europe was reorganized, and the breeding stock was divided.
During World War II, the breed again was threatened when Nazi Germany transferred most of the mares in the breeding stock to what was then Hostau, Czechoslovakia. In spring 1945, the horses were threatened by the advancing Soviet army. However, a portion of the U.S. Army, led by Gen. George Patton, was stationed near the area. Patton, a horseman, heard about the horses at Hostau, where 400 Allied prisoners also were being kept.
Operation Cowboy, led by Col. Charles Reed, resulted in the recovery of 1,200 horses, including 375 Lipizzans. Patton then worked with the head of the Spanish Riding School, Col. Alois Podhajsky, and the American Army to herd the horses 35 miles across the border into Germany.
Patton’s crusade was later made famous by the 1963 Disney movie “Miracle of the White Stallions,” but the Herrmann family tells a much more personal story.
Herrmann’s family, originally from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, has been around Lipizzans for more than 300 years. A knight in Herrmann’s lineage originally was gifted a stallion, and throughout the years, her family helped breed the horse.
“As the generations and the family grew, there were times where there were a lot of horses and times when there were a few horses,” she says. “But there was always somebody that was interested in having the horses.”
Around the same time that Patton was running Operation Cowboy, Herrmann’s family was running a rescue mission of their own. The Herrmanns were fleeing war-torn Europe, but not without their Lipizzans. So Herrmann’s grandfather and father began smuggling their horses out of Europe.
“It was a jewel for them,” Herrmann says. “They would put mud on them and camouflage them, and they would leave in the middle of the night to get the horses out.”
The family had long dreamed of immigrating to the U.S., but it would be several years before they were able to realize that dream. For many years after the war, the family toured with small circuses throughout the Caribbean and South America before eventually finding a sponsor that would bring them to the U.S.
In 1962, the family finally docked in the U.S. with one stallion, one mare and a 6-month-old colt. They began performing in smaller venues with touring companies until they saved enough capital to tour on their own.
Once the Herrmanns had enough horses to be self-sustaining, they began traveling the U.S. by themselves. After traveling for many years and performing at venues, such as Cow Palace and Madison Square Garden, the Herrmann family wanted a place to call their own.
The family already owned a small piece of land off Fruitville Road, but it needed a bigger piece of real estate to open a private farm to local visitors during the off-season.
Herrmann’s father bought the current property at 32755 Singletary Road in Myakka City in 1963, back when the roads were like a patchwork quilt weaving around farms.
“The first thing out of my grandfather’s mouth was: ‘Son, what have you done? Nobody will ever find us,’” Herrmann recalls.
Nonetheless, the family began building, and not soon after, a man driving by saw the Lipizzans and stopped to look at them. The next week, the driver brought friends to watch, and popularity snowballed from there.
Eventually, the family had to build a larger arena and add more weekly shows to accommodate all the interest. The shows would feature classical dressage, dancing horses and battle maneuvers, such as the popular “airs above the ground.”
The airs above the ground comprises three movements: the levade, in which a horse lifts itself into a 45 degree angle to allow the rider to see far into the distance; the courbette, in which the horse lifts itself on its hind legs and jumps forward at an opponent; and the capriole, in which the horse jumps straight up and kicks out at opponents with its hind legs, the force of which could decapitate an opponent.
“All these maneuvers are natural, and any horse can do them,” Herrmann says. “However, the Lipizzan was created for its bone and muscle mass to take the impact of these maneuvers.”
After the invention of gunpowder, however, military men didn’t have a need for horses to learn the maneuvers, and the airs above the ground are now considered a lost art, one that the Herrmann family is proud to keep alive.
Today, there are fewer than 8,500 purebred Lipizzans in the world, according to the U.S. Lipizzan Federation, and the Herrmann family owns 25 of them. Ten of the horses perform in the shows, with some still in training and others now retired.
Lipizzans are born black, brown or gray and gradually lighten to the white coat they’re known for between the ages of 6 and 10, which is just after they’re fully trained for the show.
Herrmann, her family and several volunteers work with the horses on and off throughout the week to train. They first start with line training to get the horses used to being handled and then work their way to airs or dancing, depending on the horse.
One volunteer, Abby Di Lecce, says she volunteers four days a week because she loves being around the family and its collective knowledge.
“Gabby’s like a walking encyclopedia of knowledge and horse history,” Di Lecce says. “We don’t just come and train, but while we’re mucking stalls, Gabby will tell us stories, and we’ll learn things we wouldn’t learn anywhere else.”
The farm runs off of donations and money made from touring, but due to COVID-19, the family's summer tour was canceled, and their weekend shows have been shut down since March.
It takes about $5,000 a month to feed the horses, not to mention the added costs of equipment and upkeep. The group started a GoFundMe page to help keep it afloat, but it didn’t garner much support.
“It’s been a very hard, long summer for us,” Herrmann says. “At this moment in time, it’s getting critical. The thought is, ‘Are we going to continue?’ We’re trying as hard as we can because I’m not getting rid of the horses. They’re family.”
But the family isn’t the only one to miss performing. Volunteer Samantha Dittmann, who has performed with the family for several years, says the horses miss the crowds as well.
“It’s so much fun performing because the horses know the crowd is out there, and they’re excited to perform as well,” Dittmann says. “We’re all ready to get back out there.”
Despite the setbacks, the family is determined to keep going. They still work with the horses each morning and hope to open again for shows in December. For Herrmann, it’s paramount to protect the history of the Lipizzans.
“This is living art, and we have to preserve the art,” Herrmann says. “It’s history, it’s art, and it has to be preserved, or we will lose it.”
Right now, Herrmann’s daughter and granddaughter, Rebecca and Sydney McCullough, perform in the show, and although Herrmann says it would be great if they’d carry on the family tradition, she’s not banking on it.
“It’s quite a responsibility, and if they want to do it, that’s great, and if not, that’s fine too,” Herrmann says. “This is something you have to want to do from inside. You can’t do it because it’s your heritage. It has to be your passion.”
