Bibliothèque mondiale du cheval

« Whether it is prancing over the tanbark of a circus ring, parading down Pennsylvania Avenue during presidential inauguration, levitating in "airs above the ground" at Vienna’s august Spanish Riding School, or dashing across the screen in a Walt Disney movie, there is no mistaking the grace and intelligence of the great white horse known as the Lipizzaner. No other single breed of horse is so famous, and so admired by the general public.
The Imperial Horse is a celebration in world and pictures of the Lipizzaner. Here is its four-hundred years history: its ancestors from Spain and Arabia and the Balkan hinterlands, its development under imperial sponsorship at the height of Hapsburg power, its adventures through war and invasion. Here are the studs that brought it into existence and in many cases still survive today : the original stud at Lipizza in what is now Yugoslavia, the imperial stud at Piber in Austria, studs in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the leading American Lipizzaner stud at Tempel Farms near Chicago — all described in detail, including pictures. And here, above all, is a wonderfully authoritative and evocative account of the way Lipizzaners are trained to perform their renowned movements — cabrioles, levades, courbettes, piaffes — and to become some of the most remarkable saddle and driving horses the world has ever seen. [.…] » Présentation de l’éditeur (1986)