Piber Federal Stud

The Piber Federal Stud (Bundesgestüt Piber) is a stud farm dedicated to the breeding of Lipizzan horses, located at the village of Piber, near the town of Köflach in western Styria, Austria. It was founded in 1798, began breeding Lipizzan horses in 1920, and today is the primary breeding farm that produces the stallions used by the Spanish Riding School, where the best stallions of each generation bred at Piber are brought for training and later public performance. One of Piber’s major objectives is "to uphold a substantial part of Austria’s cultural heritage and to preserve one of the best and most beautiful horse breeds in its original form."

Piber Castle was formerly the Abbey of St. Lambrecht. The stud was created 1798 for the purpose of breeding military horses. In 1867, it came under the governance of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Ministry for Agriculture. In 1915, at the beginning of World War I, the Lipizzan horses from the Court Stud at Lipica (today located in Slovenia) were evacuated and placed at Laxenburg and Kladrub. Following the war, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up, with Lipica becoming part of Italy. Thus, the animals were divided up between several different studs in the new postwar nations of Austria, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Yugoslovia. The nation of Austria kept the stallions of the Spanish Riding School and some breeding stock. By 1920, the Austrian breeding stock was consolidated at Piber.

During World War II, the high command of Nazi Germany transferred most of Europe's Lipizzan breeding stock to Hostau, Czechoslovakia. The breeding stock was taken from Piber in 1942. By spring of 1945, the horses at Hostau were in danger from the advancing Soviet army, which may have slaughtered the animals for horsemeat had it captured the facility. However, the Third Army's United States Second Cavalry, a tank unit under the command of Colonel Charles Reed, had discovered the horses at Hostau, where there were also 400 Allied prisoners of war, and had occupied it on April 28, 1945. "Operation Cowboy," as the rescue was known, resulted in the recovery of 1,200 horses, including 375 Lipizzans, General George S. Patton learned of the raid, and arranged for the director of the Spanish Riding School, Alois Podhajsky to fly to Hostau. On May 12, American soldiers began riding, trucking and herding the horses 35 miles across the border into Kotztinz, Germany. The Lipizzans were eventually settled in temporary quarters in Wimsbach, until the breeding stock returned to Piber in 1952.

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