New York Times | By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.
IPICA, Slovenia -- If one-trick ponies dream, they dream of being Lipizzaners.
But in the age of globalization, even dreams of white horses need their fine print scrutinized by lawyers. Both the European Union and the World Trade Organization have been drawn into a dispute over what exactly makes a horse an official descendant of those first bred in this mountain hamlet in 1580.
The barrel-chested stallions are the world's most famous performing horses, but one must deeply love animals to understand the cult that has grown up around them in the last 420 years. What is it that makes grown men dedicate their lives to training their mounts to perfect a few moves: the courbette (hop three times), the capriol (jump up and kick) and the pirouette (once around without tripping)? The answer would help explain why there is a whole museum dedicated to Lipizzaners in Vienna, or why Gen. George Patton risked an armored brigade to save them in 1945.
Everyone agrees that a Lipizzaner must have the classic white coat, arched neck, broad chest, short but strong legs and the rest of the look that makes the horse, in the words of the Lipizzaner Museum, "a Baroque work of art."
But does it, as the Austrians would like, have to strut its stuff at the celebrated Spanish Riding School in Vienna? Or can it just be a lazy, happy stud of the right bloodline in Croatia, which used to be in the Austro-Hungarian Empire?
Can it even be a performer from a refugee strain in America or South Africa, countries the Hapsburgs never ruled? Or, as the Slovenes argued, must it come from Lipica, just as sparkling wine that wants to dignify itself has to come from Champagne?
To both Austria and Slovenia, it is not merely a matter of looks or genes. Attitude counts.
Both countries' national stud farms -- Austria's has been in Piber since 1918 -- train their best horses for nearly 10 years and give regular shows. Any stallion that proves too stupid or too mean to perform becomes, in effect, a non-Lipizzaner, trotted out of the stud books.
"We might use it for tourist riding, or sell it, but it's not useful for breeding," said Milan Bozic, general manager of the Slovenian national farm.
In the 16th century, before trademark laws and European Union subsidies, these things were simpler.
Archduke Karl of the House of Hapsburg could just pick a spot in his family's vast empire where he would breed a new horse, a mix of the powerful local Karsters used by mounted knights with the fast but skittish Arabians he purchased from Spain and Italy.
Lipica -- Lipizza in Italian, the town's second official language -- had the mountain air he liked for colts, and the rocky ground that would force them to step high and run far in search of grass, building muscle.
For the next 217 years, the imperial stud farm produced the Hapsburgs' cavalry chargers and carriage horses.
And even before Vienna became famous for waltzing humans, the emperors were recruiting equerries from the courts of France to teach their nags to dance.
Then, as things got tougher for the Hapsburgs, they got tougher for their horses.
The herd escaped becoming Napoleonic War booty in 1797 by retreating to Hungary, but French troops looted Lipica three times.
In 1918, when the empire lost World War I and was broken up, Lipica went to Italy. When Italy lost World War II, it went to Yugoslavia. In 1991, Slovenia broke with Yugoslavia, taking Lipica along.
In 1918, the herd was broken up. Italy, Croatia, Bohemia, Austria and other remnants of the empire each got a few. No one might have noticed, except that the emperor's private dancers in Vienna suddenly had to earn their own oats.
"The Austrian people said, 'Why should we have to pay for this if we don't even know what it is?' " said Barbara L. Wutte, spokeswoman for the Lipizzaner Museum.
The Spanish Riding School, which is inside the Hofburg Palace, making Austria's seat of government one of the few in the world with a distinctly horsey aroma, began giving public performances.
They became one of Vienna's chief tourist draws, and tickets now cost $17 to $80.
In World War II, as the Third Reich was falling, the German officers in charge of the school risked execution to save the horses. Fearing that the advancing Americans would bomb the stables, or that Hitler would shoot them for spite or the advancing Russians would eat them, they secretly contacted General Patton. He sent the Second Cavalry Brigade into enemy territory to round them up, and later posed for photographers astride a steed that Hitler had promised to Emperor Hirohito.
(The story was retold in the 1962 Disney film "The Miracle of the White Horses," with the crucial roles filled by Lipica Lipizzaners.)
Since then the breed has prospered. That is, until the shootout at the W.T.O. corral began in 1995.
Just after joining the European Union, Austria asked to be named official keeper of the central stud book of origin of the 3,500 Lipizzaners in the world.
"Each farm keeps its stud book but this is the holy bible," said Bojan Pretnar, director of the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office. "It's an extremely important right, because you de facto decide on further breeding." Italy, which has also bred Lipizzaners in Monte Rotonda since 1945, initially objected, but settled.
"Then Slovenia said, 'Gentlemen, we are here and the Lipizzaner comes from us and we want to be part of this game,' " Mr. Pretnar said. "The answer was polite, but Brussels replied, 'You're not yet an E.U. member, so you're out.' This was an uproar here, because these are symbols of national pride."
Then Mr. Pretnar had a brainstorm.
He would trump the European Union by registering the Lipizzaner name with the World Trade Organization.
European Union rules protecting regional trademarks on foods like Champagne and Roquefort cheese specifically exclude animals, like St. Bernard dogs or Jersey cows.
But the rules on "geographical indication" in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, over which so many countries are battling before the World Trade Organization, do seem to allow them, although Slovenia admits this is a test case.
In January 1999, Slovenia registered the name.
Austria, furious, accused it of erecting barriers to trade, of trying to shut down the Spanish Riding School and of wanting the money the European Union offers to breeders of endangered species.
"That was a faux pas," Mr. Pretnar said, since the trade group would have presumably seen Austria's lunge for the master stud book as a bigger trade barrier. "We capitalized on that."
Late last year, both the European Union and the trade organization washed their hands of the dispute and asked Austria and Slovenia to settle it between them. "Now we're discussing everything -- the name, the breeding book, everything," Mr. Pretnar said. "And that's all we wanted."
The stallions, though highly intelligent, remain indifferent to these human machinations. For who would neigh-say such a career: one or two shows a week, a little school, Alpine vacations and a retirement to a paddock full of mares.
"Maybe in my next life," Ms. Wutte said wistfully, "I will be a Lipizzaner."New York Times:
