What a lot of saddles !!

Today we went to the famous Spanish Riding School in Vienna, so called because they use spanish lippanzer horses ... we watched morning exercise and then had a guided tour of the whole Hofburg!!
It takes years and years and years and years before you can call yourself a spanish riding school rider... you get taken on between 17-24 and first of all you have to clean tack and muck out all the time, and watch the riders then after 6 years or so of doing that, and being on the lunge perfecting your seat!! you get to be an assitant rider , where you still have to muck out but you get to ride now and again, you get assigned a youngster type horse and with loads of training, you get this youngster ready for a performance , and in doing so earn your stripes to ride in performances then you get to be a real rider, after 12 years of slogging away, getting up at 5am etc ... but it is very beautiful to watch ... defintiely worth the visit , sadly my illicitly taken photos , there were many folks wandering around explain that 'fotos were verboten' didn't come out too well and are all a little blurry :-(
due to the grey skys and the threat of snow, many of my photos are rather grey and blurry!