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A
HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN HORSES
[Continued.]
ALSOZSUK
At
the Second Vienna Arbitration in 1942 Northern Transylvania, with
a Hungarian majority of people, was awarded to Hungary, while
Southern Transylvania remained Romanian. The writer of these lines
(Egon) had the privilege and pleasure to ride with his battery
then to occupy the northern, Hungarian part of Transylvania.
Near the capital Kolozsvar – Cluj in Alsozsuk the Hungarian
Government reorganized an existing state farm to serve the needs
of Transylvanian farmers. Besides Raczka sheep, cattle and water
buffaloes, they had a sizable herd of horses including Hucul mountain
ponies. The commanding officer of the estate was the late Captain
Laszlo Monostory, who was a member of our Association and of the
Breeding Committee.
HUNGARIAN
HORSES IN COMPETITION PRIOR TO WW II
In
1931, Colonel Lajos Malanotti won an international jumping competition
in Toronto on a Kisber felver mare named Ibolya. The other members
of the team were my commandant Major Agoston Endrody (who established
the Badminton Event and wrote the book "Give your Horse a
Chance") on Egal and Ottmar Schaurek on Erdo.
I witnessed the sad story of the Hungarian
eventing (combined training) team at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
Endrody on the felver Pandur ended up with the 5th place, and
Lieutenant Jankovich on Irany was 9th. Captain Istvan Visy, the
1935 Hungarian Eventing Champion, on the felver Legeny had a great
dressage ride, and no jumping faults on the cross country, but
his horse slipped out on a grassy surface and broke a leg. The
Hungarians finishing would have had 415 penalty points and the
Germans won it with 676. Thus the Hungarian team would have been
the Gold Medal team.
In the Olympic jumping competition Captain Platthy was third on
Sello, a Hungarian bred Thoroughbred, and thus received the Olympic
Bronze Medal.
Alois Podhajsky, best known now as long-time
director of the Spanish Riding School and author of several books
on dressage training, had a Hungarian felver gelding, Teja, whom
Podhajsky considered to be one of his most talented dressage horses,
with both a spectacular extended trot and a tremendous passage.
Because Teja was in his prime during the years of World War II,
he was not shown to his potential, but in 1949 and 1950 Podhajsky
gave exhibitions in Ireland and England with Teja and two Lippizan
stallions, and the Hungarian gelding created a sensation in the
horse world there.
In endurance
competition the breeding of the successful horses is frequently
not mentioned. An exception is Captain Kimmerle of the 4th German
Cavalry Regiment who wrote an article about his experience at
the 580 km 361 mile Vienna - Berlin "monster" endurance
ride in 1892. He was sixth, finishing it in 76 hours, riding the
six year old Hungarian gelding Szelvesz by the Thoroughbred The
Pace out of Hethke, a Hungarian Furioso mare bred in Sarvar, Hungary
by the Wittelsbachs, Bavarian Royal Family. The winner was the
Austrian Wilhelm Count Starhemberg riding Athos, a high felver
(much Tb. blood) bred by Count Forgach in Mandok, eastern Hungary.
His time was 71 hours.
Of the 120 German participants only 76,
and of the 97 Austro-Hungarians 69 had finished. Of the fastest
24 horses, 16 (or two thirds) were bred in Hungary. This and other
endurance rides enhanced the reputation of Hungarian horses: The
armies of Italy, Greece, Romania, Turkey, England, Saxony, Bavaria
and Iran imported Hungarian horses.
WORLD
WAR II AND HORSES
In
the artillery we preferred a heavier horse like Nonius or Furioso
from Mezohegyes. In 1944,I myself rode a Nonius during the war
in the Soviet Union. The reason was, that if we lost a horse pulling
the tender (the tender is pulling the cannon) we immediately could
replace it with a horse originally ridden. In fact we lost two
horses when the frost broke and the weight of the cannon and tender
pulled two horses into the Pripiet swamp as the ground thawed.
The smaller, lighter local horses had less trouble getting around.
General Tibor
von Tettko Szandtner headed the department of horse breeding in
the Ministry of Agriculture during the war. He decided to evacuate
one-half of the breeding stock to Germany, as he hoped it would
be occupied by the American Army, and disperse the other half
by giving them to farmers who could hide them from the approaching
Soviet Army.
Thanks to the connections Tettko Szandtner had in German equestrian
and army circles some horses were taken to Bergstetten, Bavaria,
Germany by train. Many others were ridden or driven there.
Among the not-so-lucky was Captain Monostory. He had to drive
his mixed herd of one thousand five hundred animals on dirt roads
to Western Hungary and across the Austrian Alps to Germany.
I myself, as a Lieutenant, helped to move the cadre of the Szondy
Artillery Regiment which included the kitchen facilities to Austria.
In addition to horses we had cows and pigs.
Some chroniclers include General George Patton’s name in
all horse stories of post war Germany. It may be appropriate to
separate legends from facts. The following information is based
on primary sources:
As Vienna was bombarded during World War II the stallions,
riders and staff of the Spanish Riding School were moved to St.Martin
to farms. At the end of the war St.Martin fell into the American
Zone of Austria. Colonel Alois Podhajsky, on May 7 1945, arranged
a performance for the U S Army which Patton enjoyed . The general
even had his picture taken riding Favory Afrika..
The mares and foals had been evacuated from Piber to Hostau, a
Czech village. Hostau in Czechoslovakia was to be in the Russian
zone. Patton ordered Colonel Charles H. Reed to gather the 1200
horses, including 300 Lipizzans, and transport them to American-occupied
Bavaria to save them from the Russians.
There is another story showing Patton saving horses and their
riders from the Russians:
The Hungarian Nadasdy regiment, part of the oldest Cavalry Brigade
of Europe, was quartered at the end of the war in Austria at the
east banks of the Ems river. The Russians were to occupy the area
east of the river and the Americans the west. Since the officers
and men preferred to become American prisoners of war rather than
Russian, several officers went to the American Headquarters to
ask for permission to cross the Ems to the west. They were politely
turned away. Finally an officer, Count Peter Somsich, decided
to ask General Patton. He also was asked to leave, but he dismounted
from his horse and in perfect English told the officers that he
would wait for General Patton.
Patton finally arrived, and walking over to Somsics asked him
whether Colonel Lajos Malanotti was still with the regiment. In
1930 Patton and Malenotti competed in Grand Prix Jumping in New
York and Toronto, where Malenotti won with his mare Ibolya II.
Somsics said that Malonnotti had retired..
May 8, 1945, 9 a.m. was the time of armistice when the Russians
would occupy the territory east of the Ems. The afternoon of the
day before, Patton came to the Castle of Salaberg where the regimental
headquarters were and said that the bridge over the Ems was open
and the regiment, with more than a thousand five hundred horses,
was welcome to move west into the American Zone. An alarm was
sounded and a column started to cross the bridge. U S soldiers
were setting fires along the road and encouraged the hussars to
hurry. By midnight only one fourth of the regiment was in safety.
Patton then drove to St.Polten and told the Russian General that
the area would be ceded to them after the whole regiment was on
the American side. Thus General George Patton saved thousands
of men and horses from falling into Russian hands. (from a Hungarian
article of Miklos Medgyesy who was an officer in the regiment
)
On December 9, 1945 General George Patton had a car accident and
died in a Heidelberg hospital December 21.
Bavaria was in the part of Germany occupied by the American Army.
Not all of the American authorities had an interest in or understanding
of the value of the thousands of horses, some irreplaceable breeding
stock. Confusion prevailed. Many of the horses were sent to a
serum factory, and others ended up with local farmers.
About 700 horses were sent back to Hungary in 1946. Not one of
Monostory’s horses was returned to Hungary.
Colonel Fred Hamilton, Chief of the American Army Remount Service,
felt that 450 stallions were not sufficient for the Service, which
usually had 700 stallions. In Germany he selected 106 Hungarian
horses to be sent to America. Their arrival in New York, after
a very rough crossing, was headline news. As plans to discontinue
the cavalry surfaced, there were abortive plans to send the horses
back to Hungary.
HORSES
IN COMMUNIST HUNGARY
The
Communist Party associated riding horses with their gentry riders,
and for ideological reasons and as part of the “class struggle”
sold many outstanding mares and stallions for meat to Italy and
to France. It also wanted to “modernize “ farming
and discouraged farmers from keeping their own work horses. By
1961 Hungary had lost more horses since the war than during the
war.
Stud farms were neglected or discontinued. Babolna was probably
the only exception, where income from raising chickens kept the
buildings maintained.
During the seventies and eighties driving, a proletarian endeavor,
became tolerated and then gradually supported by the government..
At the Los Angeles Olympics Hungary had a pentathlon team where
the riding phase was coached by Major Bela Toth, who was my battery
commander in Transylvania. Hungarian pairs and teams became European
and World Driving Champions.
HUNGARY’S
HORSES TODAY
As
the Soviet Empire imploded and the Soviet Army left around 1998,
Hungary gradually became a democratic country and part of Europe.
The dedication of the statue of General Tibor de Pettko Szandtner
in Babolna in 1992 was the dramatic moment when the Hungarian
equestrians, official and private, made their peace with Hungary’s
pre-Communist history. Only one year earlier, in 1991, General
Pettko Szandtner was considered a non person.
Dr. Ekkehard Frielinghaus, the President of the International
Shagya Association, was the keynote speaker remembering his friend
Tibor. Another friend, Laszlo Monostory, laid a wreath at the
pedestal of the statue in the name of the” Royal Hungarian
Stud Service”. A year earlier this would have landed him
in a jail.
The government’s Quality Control Center made efforts to
improve horse breeding by buying and keeping outstanding stallions
for the use of private breeders. Several private breeding farms
were also started and their horse population surpassed those of
the government farms.
Which farms should you visit on your next trip to Hungary?
Let us start with state owned or subsidized estates. They closely
cooperate with the private farms to avoid inbreeding and provide
advice where needed:
Babolna has thirty Arabian and thirty high quality Shagya Arabian
mares and several stallions. The buildings are lovely, the restaurant
elegant, and it is only an hour west of Budapest. They are training
riding and driving horses.
Marocpuszta , south of Budapest, is on a lovely hillside and has
Gidrans.
Szilvasvarad , way north in the Bukk the mountains near the Slovak
border, has Lipizzans and is also a center of driving.
Mezohegyes, south east, has German breeds and Nonius.
Do not miss Hortobagy in the east. It is in the center of the
Hungarian steppe. It has a lovely hotel, the Epona, and is the
home of the Nonius herd of the City of Debrecen, some German horses
longhorn cattle, Raczka sheep and water buffaloes. Tourists are
welcome:
The Pannon University has its stables and riding programs in a
suburb of Kaposvar. The facilities are upscale. It is recommended
to stop by if you are in the vicinity
The most interesting private farms are:
The Nagycsere, the farm near Debrecen of Dr. Ivan Novobaczky,
has an outstanding herd of Shagyas. In 2002 I was sitting near
Dr. Novobaczky’s table at the Babolna show and by the end
of the day his table was loaded with trophies.
Mr. Mihaly Pataki’s stud near Kecskemet has an outstanding
collection of. Western European and Shagya stallions and mares
and has a reputable training program for his progeny. They are
successful in jumper classes.
Mr. Imre Parti and his picturesque Pelsonius Stud Farm has over
a hundred Shagya mares and stallions, many of them from Romania.
Kereki is near the Lake Balaton
There are Furioso Northstar horses in Pusztabereny. The horses
originally were kept in Sarvar at the estate of the Bavarian Royal
Family, spent the war years in Germany and were donated by the
Wittelsbachs to Hungary. Prince Ludvig of Bavaria has recently
visited a Furioso presentation in Bugac.
Janos Loska is probably the most successful breeder of Furioso
Northstars and crossbred Kisber jumping horses. His farm is in
Vanyarc where he has a training program.
The Repaspuszta’s herd of Shagyas is only two miles from
Kaposvar. The Penny Club is the only organization in Hungary reminiscent
of our Pony Clubs. The Club offers lessons on gentle Shagya mares
and has camps for children during the summer. Every single mare
is used in the program. The breeders, the children and Dr. Attila
Lasso, their trainer, deserve credit for making this possible.
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