On this occasion, it exchanged gifts with the Piber Stud Farm in Austria – which breeds stock Lipizzaner mares – to symbolically mark a new era of cooperation between European Lipizzaner stud farms. The exchange launched an initiative to inscribe all the Lipizzaner stud farms on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The application will be led by the Lipica Stud Farm.
"This is a symbolic act by which we will protect the Lipizzaner for at least 435 more years. Along with the Austrian Piber Stud Farm and all other Lipizzaner stud farms, we will protect the Lipizzaner, its rearing and breeding for generations to come, so that they will be able to admire this magnificent horse, while at the same time, we will also protect the Lipica Stud Farm", says Boštjan Bizjak PhD, acting director of the Lipica Stud Farm.

History of the Lipica Stud Farm
Its foundation is closely linked with the Habsburg dynasty, which ruled a substantial portion of Baroque Europe for 650 years. During this time, horses were considered to be an essential strategic asset, which made them extremely important to the Habsburgs. Spanish horses were the most popular and valued. As the soil and climate of the Karst region are very similar to that of Spain, it was not surprising that the Archduke Charles II, son of the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I, in 1578, chose the abandoned summer residence of the Bishop of Trieste in this area to become the royal stud farm.
On 19 May 1580, he signed an agreement to acquire the estate.

Long before that, Karst horses were famous for their persistence and were known to be useful for carriage driving and long-distance horseback riding. Therefore, after the establishment of the stud farm, Karst horses were crossbred with Spanish, Italian and Arab horses in order to be improved. Two hundred years later, the Lipizzaner breed was developed.
The development of the Lipizzaner breed is also closely connected with classical dressage riding – a fine art of communication between a rider and a horse, with beginnings dating back to Ancient Greece. The development of classical dressage as it is known in Europe today is related to the establishment of the Spanish Riding School in Vienna. It is referred to as ‘Spanish’ because only horses from Spain were used at first, but they were soon replaced by Lipizzaner stallions from the Lipica Stud Farm. Lipizzaner stallions at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna were bred in the Lipica Stud Farm until the beginning of World War I.
Six classical lines of stallions
In Lipica today, six classical lines of stallions are preserved, based on the following six foundation stallions: Conversano, Neapolitano, Favory, Maestoso, Pluto and Siglavy.
The founding sires of these lines were: Original Danish stallion Pluto, grey, born 1765 at the Frederiksborg Royal Stud Farm, Neapolitan stallion Conversano Senior, black, born 1767, Neapolitano stallion Senior, brown, born 1770, Kladruby stallion Maestoso Senior, grey, born 1773, and Kladruby stallion Favory Senior, grey, born 1779. 17 classical families of mares have been preserved until today.
Bright and dark moments, rises and falls
The long history of the Lipica Stud Farm has been marked by numerous bright and dark moments. During the periods of development, new buildings were added, the number of horses increased and nearby estates were purchased, while periods of crisis arrived with the Napoleonic wars, World War I and World War II. In the period of Napoleonic wars, the herd of Lipizzaners was evacuated five times.
In 1796, the herd had to flee the French army for the first time. It was moved to Székesfehérvár, southwest of Budapest and did not return until 1798. It moved a second time in 1805 to Đakovo in Slavonia (Croatia), from where it moved to Karad in Hungary and eventually returned to Lipica in April 1807. In 1809, the herd fled for a third time, to a place near Mezőhegyes in Hungary, from which it returned finally in 1815. During that time, Lipica was devastated. Extensive restoration of buildings, meadows, pastures and deforested groves was required, which took several decades.
The herd was evacuated five times between the world wars
Soon after the outbreak of World War I in 1915, the stud farm was evacuated to Laxenburg, near Vienna, from where the foals were moved to Kladruby in what is today the Czech Republic. After the war, Lipica came under Italian rule. The Republic of Czechoslovakia confiscated all Lipizzaners that were kept in Kladruby, Italy was given 107 horses that were returned to Lipica in 1919, while the Austrians established the Piber Stud Farm in Styria with the remaining herd. The last evacuation of the Stud Farm took place during World War II. Only a day after Italy’s surrender on 8 September 1943, the Lipica Stud Farm was occupied by the Germans. On 16 October of the same year they evacuated all 179 horses to Hostau in the Sudetenland, where Lipizzaners from other stud farms were also gathered. At the end of World War II, American occupational forces passed a part of the Lipica herd to Italy, while the other part was given to Austria.
Lively tourism in the ‘golden years’
At the end of December 1947, only 11 horses had returned to Lipica. Much effort and commitment by those who cared for Lipica and Lipizzaners was required for the Stud Farm to recover and regain its world fame in the ‘golden’ 70’s and 80’s. In this period, it also became a lively tourist destination and established its own classical riding school with astonishing elements in the air and on the ground, with which it still successfully presents itself around the world.
The wars in the Balkans after the disintegration of Yugoslavia reduced the number of visitors considerably and Slovenia’s independence in 1991 meant a new beginning for the Stud Farm. In particular, the adoption of the Lipica Stud Farm Act was a breaking point in searching for new solutions for Lipica. Today, the Act protects the entire area of the Lipica Stud Farm, along with the cultivated Karst landscape, the herd of Lipizzaners and the architectural and art heritage, as a cultural monument of national importance for the Republic of Slovenia.
Thus, the Lipica Stud Farm estate was preserved in its original size of 311 hectares and in its kidney shape to the present day. Lipica Stud Farm is one of the most beautiful cultural-historical monuments in Slovenia, giving home to more than 350 Lipizzaners. With its 435-year tradition, Lipica is the world’s oldest stud farm with uninterrupted breeding of Lipizzaners. The estate is the only a micro-location that provides optimum conditions for the top-quality breeding of Lipizzaners. It represents a unique ambience in which individual elements – the spatial arrangement, architectural core and cultural landscape – have evolved exclusively for the purpose of the fundamental, original activity – breeding of Lipizzaners. It has enormous development potential in terms of enabling top-quality breeding of Lipizzaners in a global context, while its development is of essential importance for the international reputation of Slovenia.
Upon joining the European Union, the Republic of Slovenia appointed the Lipica Stud Farm as a breeding organisation that keeps the stud book of origine for the Lipizzaner breed.
Nowadays, the Lipica Stud Farm is going through the most extensive and important renovation in recent decades, worth almost seven million euros. This places the renovation of Lipica among the largest renovation projects of European state stud farms in recent decades.