Rare-Breed Report
This Month: A Closer Look at area Friesians and Lipizzans
By Lisa Broadwater

If you know where to look in Arkansas, you'll find a surprising number of rare breeds being raised on local farms. Last month, we focused on Spanish mustangs at Spirit Horse Ranch in Lincoln; Andalusians at White Magic Farm in Clinton; and Tennuvians and Peruvian Pasos at Bar Fifty Ranch in Bismarck. Below we take a look at two more rare breeds: Friesians and Lipizzans. (And if you’re raising a rare breed, let us know about it!)

Friesians at Razwind Ranch, Mountain Home
It was a movie — Ladyhawke — that introduced Toni Raczynski to the stately Friesian. One of the oldest breeds in Europe, the Friesian was imported to North America during the 1600s but, until 1974, had been lost due to crossbreeding.
"After I saw that movie," Raczynski recalls, "I did research on the horse for five years. I thought I was really crazy, and then I found out most of the other people looking for Friesians then were also doing it because of Ladyhawke. Because no one had ever seen one before.
"I thought, 'Is it a crossbreed? I’d like to crossbreed two horses and get a horse like that myself!' I'd ask people, and they’d say “Oh, I heard it’s a Thoroughbred and a Percheron.’ Or “I think it’s a Morgan and a Shire.” But no horse book had them in it. In fact, there was no information in America; you had to write to Holland. Finally, Equus did an article on the Friesian — it was the first article in America on the breed."
Meanwhile, Raczynski, who was living in Illinois at the time, saw an ad in an Illinois paper for ‘Fancy Friesian Farm.”
"I went out there the next day," she says. "And they were just so exotic-looking. I loved the way they looked." However, Raczynski assumed the horses were far too expensive for her to afford (often between $10,000 and $20,000).
"The owner said, 'Why don’t you buy one?' “ Raczynski recalls. “And I said, 'Because I’m only a nurse,' and she said, 'Well so am I!' Then she mentioned that a man in Michigan had just imported three Friesians and offered to take me to see and perhaps buy them. I said, ‘No I don’t want to buy one, but I’d love to go look at them.’ It was a full-day trip in the winter, through snowstorms.
"And there was Odielia. She was just gorgeous. She was about 20 months old, and she was out there prancing in the ring. And the man said, 'Do you want to buy her?' and I said, 'Yeah, but I don’t have the money. Would you give me some time to get it?'
"So I went home and told my husband I wanted to buy a Friesian, and he said, 'What’s the matter with you?!' Because she was really expensive. But, you know, I haven’t wanted much in my whole life. And I decided I wanted this. So I went to work and took on extra shifts and extra days, then I went to the bank and borrowed some money. Then I got my Visa card and used that.
"I’ve never regretted buying that horse. She paid for herself with the first baby she had. And I’ve had such fun with her."
Known for its impressive size, arched neck, high knee action and elegant movement, the Friesian originated in Friesland, a province of the Netherlands. Today, there are about 2,000 Friesians in America. All registered Friesians are jet black, with only a small white spot between the eyes allowed. They have an abundance of hair on their "feathered" manes, tails and fetlocks.
What Raczyinski especially loves about the breed (she has two mares she has bred several times via artificial insemination to world champion stallion Gerlof) is their temperament.
"I liked Arabians because they were such people horses," she says. "These are like quiet Arabians. They’re very, very gentle — gentle giants. Even the babies are sweet."
They are also extremely powerful. As Raczyinksi points out, "If anything’s going to go wrong, it’s going to be twice as bad. If you have a runaway, you’re not going to stop it. They’ve got that huge, powerful neck. Now, I’ve never had that problem."
Friesians excel at driving. In fact, Raczinski's foundation mare, Odielia, has won numerous ribbons.
"They’re showy and they love it; they’re kind of made for that," she says. "For centuries, they were bred for driving. And finally people wanted to start riding them. Also, they’re doing very good in dressage — they’re actually winning in Europe and America. And they’re good for trail riding."
The downside?
"They’re big," Raczyinski says. "And If you want to do any fast sports or endurance-type things, you don’t want a Friesian."

Lippizans at Pine Mountain Farms, Clarksville
Cathy Funk was interested in both breeding and dressage when she stumbled into the Lippizan business. At the time, she owned Saddlebreds and wanted to breed horses suitable for dressage.
"But I couldn’t afford warmblood stud fees," she says. "So I started looking around for a cheaper stud fee and found an ad from a woman in Northwest Arkansas for a really reasonable stud fee, so I went up there to look at a Lippizan stallion. [The woman, Annie Holmes, had gotten her stock from Temple Farms, one of the two primary major American Lippizan breeders.]
At that point, Funk knew little about Lippizans, which are famous for their association with the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.
"In fact, if anything I had a negative impression of them as being small and ponyish and very short-strided," she says. "But I got up there and I really liked the stallion, and I asked to see some of his babies. So we went to the mare pasture, and they just came galloping across the pasture. And I didn’t see them in that pasture; I saw them in my pasture. I came home and sold my cattle and bought half the herd (four mares and a stallion).
Since then, the herd has grown to 28 (including a set of young twins — colt and filly – both of which survived).
"I’ve gathered mares from around the country," Funk says. "But I still have the original stallion — although I’ve tried a lot of others, but I keep going back to him. The babies he produces are just better quality."
The Lippizan's roots go back to the 1500s, when Arab blood was fused with Spanish horses during the Moorish occupation of Spain. Within time, the horse was considered the most suitable mount for classical riding because of his sturdiness, beauty and intelligence. Maximillian II exported the horses to Austria in the mid-1500s, where they became the foundation stock of the Spanish Riding School, which is devoted to perpetuating the art of classical horsemanship.
Born black-brown, brown or mouse-grey, Lipizzans gradually lighten until the white coat for which they are famous is produced (somewhere between the ages of 6 and 10). Breeding the Lipizzan requires special consideration.
"Lipizzans have a very limited gene pool," Funk says; "there are less than 2,000 in the world. Of course, they were bred in Europe, and they’re always in the middle of wars over there. This last unrest in Bosnia — that is the heart of the original area of Lipizzans. So, of course, they get nearly wiped out every time there’s a major war there.
"So we have to be careful we don’t breed too closely. Nobody really line-breeds because no matter what you do you’re basically line breeding. Even if you import one from Europe, if you go back four generations, they’re all the same horses, because after the Second World War, there just weren’t many left."
As for distinguishing characteristics, "They’re heavy-bodied horses with tremendous bone — really big joints and thick bones," Funk says. "They’re not real tall (typically about 15’1), although I’ve seen some as big as 16’3. But they’re broad enough that a 15’1 Lipizzan is a pretty good-size animal. It takes up a lot of leg; they don’t look or feel small. The quality of the gaits have a softness to them.
"They have a lot of personality. Most are quiet-natured, but they're sometimes a little stubborn. They have a high opinion of themselves. They kind of resent taking orders. They want to be involved in any decision that’s made about them. Training them is not 'Do it, by golly! I said, Do it!’, it’s “Would you please?'
"And they’ll think about it, then they’ll go, 'Okay, I guess that’s not going to kill me.' And they’ll do it. If you approach everything like that with them, they’re really marvelous animals. Because once they trust you, they’ll do almost anything for you."
Lipizzans excel at dressage — after all, "They’ve been bred for that for 500 years," Funk points out, "and they're good at cutting cattle; people sometimes cross them with Quarter horses. I’ve heard people say they’re the best general ranch horses they’ve had."
Because they're slow to mature, "We don’t start to ride them until they’re at least 3, and we ride them very lightly then," Funk says. "They live a long time, so if you give them time to mature, they’ll be sound into their late 20s, even early 30s. There’s a Lipizzan on the East Coast eventing in his early 30s."
And there are riders that Lipizzans aren't well suited to: "People who think a horse should always do exactly what you tell it to do, no matter what," Funk says. "People who think once you ask a horse to do something, you have to push it through that day. Or people who have no patience and say, “Okay, get in the trailer,” and the horse stops for a moment, so they start hitting them or trying to pull them in. Boy, they’re in for something — you’ve never seen fireworks like this! And they’re strong animals, really strong animals. My vets have learned to treat them with respect."

NOTE: Letter to the Editor: Printed April 03
Dear Roundup:
I personally love your magazine but truly dislike misinformation, such as stated in your article on the Lipizzaner (in the February 2003 issue). The article contained much misinformation; most notable was about the foundation of the breed.
The original Lipizzaner stud was founded in 1580, in Lipica, Slovenia (thus the name Lipizzaner), which was then a part of the Austrian/Hungarian Empire. The founder was Erzherzog (Archduke) Karl.
There are six distinct lines of the Lipizzaner: the Pluto, Conversano, maestoso, Neapolitano, Favory and Siglavy. Only the Favory and Siglavy lines contain Arabian blood. The rest stemmed from other bloodlines, including the European Thoroughbred and various European warmbloods and coldbloods, the reason being that some are better suited to the carriage, classical dressage and the high school (Vienna Riding School, for example).
The war in Bosnia had absolutely nothing to do with the size of the Lipizzaner herds either in Slovenia or Piber (Austria), which are the only recognized national stud farms for the breed. The Second World War was another question. Presently, the herd size is a question of economics and carefully selected breeding practices of each line.
As a student of the Lipizzaner breed and having lived in the areas mentioned from 1990-2001, I felt the need to correct these blatant errors.
Martha Galek
Double Eagle Farm Little Rock