Published in The Post-Star (D1)
10/14/05
In April 1945, most of the Lipizzaner horses in the world were all in one place -- a German prisoner-of-war camp in Hostau, Czechoslovakia, that lay in the path of advancing Russian troops.
When word of their plight reached U.S. Army General George Patton Jr., a former Olympic equestrian, he sent in the cavalry.
"If it hadn't been for Patton, there wouldn't be any Lipizzans today," said Gary Lashinsky, producer of "The World Famous Lipizzaner Stallions," a touring equestrian performance that will be at Glens Falls Civic Center tonight.
Timothy Horgan of Queensbury was a member of the 2nd Squadron of the 2nd Armored Cavalry Group that conducted the rescue mission in April 1945. Sixty years later, he's looking forward to getting his second glimpse of the mighty white stallions. He's going to tonight's performance with his three grandsons.
"Our colonel was a horseman, as was General Patton -- and when you're born a horseman, you stay a horseman," Horgan said. During the war, however, Horgan's mount was an M8 armored scout car. The cavalry stopped riding horses in 1942, two years before he was drafted.
The Lipizzans are a rare breed of white horses, descended from Spanish stock and trained in Vienna since the 16th century. They are prized for their grace and precision in dressage, an equestrian sport that requires a horse and rider to perform a dancelike sequence of maneuvers.
At the beginning of World War II, about 300 Lipizzans were evacuated from the famous Spanish Riding School in Piber, Austria, to a stud farm in Hostau. They were well cared for by the German troops who found them there, said Horgan, but their fate in the hands of the Russians was less certain.
"The Russian soldiers had a reputation for trashing places," Horgan said. "We knew they would do whatever they wanted with the horses -- use them as work horses, or worse, who knows."
Col. Charles Hancock Reed, who commanded Horgan's group, learned of the Lipizzans' location from the officer of a captured German intelligence unit. Reed is now dead, but described the encounter in a 1970 memoir.
"We found that we had mutual horse interests ... and agreed that these fine animals should not fall into the Communists' hands, and the prisoners should be rescued," he wrote. "Shortly, a laconic message was relayed from General Patton: 'Get them. Make it fast! You will have another mission.'"
The 2nd Cavalry reached Hostau on April 28, and were met with a friendly surrender by the Germans. "It appeared as a fiesta rather than a battle," Reed wrote. The troops released about 400 American, British, French and Polish prisoners of war, and loaded the horses into converted "six-by-six" supply trucks.
Horgan's unit was in charge of reconnaissance, which meant it drove ahead of the convoy of horses to make sure the roads and towns were safe to travel through.
After a three-day journey, the Lipizzans made it to Schwarzberg, Germany.Their rescue was popularized in a 1963 Disney movie, "The Miracle of the White Stallions," which Horgan said was mostly accurate.
"They took some liberties with the end, making it look like there was more of a battle than it really was, but I guess they had to do that," he said.
Now 80, Horgan said his memories of the war are fading, but he hasn't forgotten the mission that saved the Lipizzans."I only keep the good ones," he said, tapping his white head with his fingers.
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