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A story that began 433 years ago and will add a Columbus chapter this weekend, when the Lipizzan stallions prance into Nationwide Arena.
‘‘We’re having the pope of the equestrian world," said Sandy Heaberlin, a Columbus legal secretary who has raised and written about Lipizzans for 25 years.
Such greatness started modestly.
In 1572, in a small Austrian town, a wooden Spanish Riding Hall was built to train riders on a special breed of horses that traced its lineage to Spain during the time of the Roman Empire.
Eight years later, the horses became known as ‘‘Lipizzans" or ‘‘Lipizzaners" after Archduke Karl II of Austria established the royal stud farm in Lipizza.
The Spanish Riding Hall, now called the Spanish Riding School, is the oldest riding school in the world.
Thirty stallions, 10 riders and 11 grooms from the school will arrive in Columbus to demonstrate a style of horsemanship that has inspired painters and sculptors.
One example: The courbette, a sort of equine bunny hop, requires the horse to stand on its hind legs and jump straight up. The best horses can pull it off 10 times in a row.
"I’ll be able to see people who take the time to train properly, whereas today we seem to rush training to get a horse in the show ring," said Heaberlin, 52, a director the Lipizzaner Association of North America.
Columbus was a natural choice for the tour, said Gary Lashinsky, president of White Stallion Productions of Florida, which is producing the visit.
"Columbus is a horse capital," he said. "It’s the center of a lot of major markets."
The tour celebrates the 60 th anniversary of the end of World War II, when American troops saved Lipizzans and the school from possible extinction.
In 1942, the Nazis dispatched mares and foals from the school to a farm in Czechoslovakia. Three years later, the school and its stallions went into exile in northwestern Austria.
When U.S. troops arrived in May 1945, school director Alois Podhajsky agreed to prepare the castle, riders and stallions for a visit from Patton, commander of the 3 rd Army and an equestrian who finished fifth in the pentathlon — which includes riding — in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden.
After the performance, Podhajsky asked Patton to protect the school and to help return the breeding stock to Austria.
Patton agreed.
On May 18 and 25, convoys led about 200 Lipizzans — some in open-backed trucks, some ridden by newly freed POWs — back to their school.
The school has been intact since then but has not visited the United States in 15 years.
Among the horses that will visit Columbus is a 26-year-old stallion named Siglavy Mantua, in his final performances.
"(This) is a farewell to one of the most wonderful horses we have," former school director Werner Pohl said.
As a youngster, Siglavy Mantua was not much to look at: His head was too big; his muscle tone, soft.
"Not good," recalled stable manager Johannes Humminger.
Looks are not everything.
"You should watch a horse at three days, three months and three years, and not in between," said Alfred Pischler, who until this summer ran the farm where the horses are bred. "They sometimes look terrible. They grow in different ways."
Siglavy Mantua’s training, like that of other stallions, started at age 4 and continued for more than four years. Unlike the others, he can perform every movement on the ground demanded of the stallions.
Siglavy Mantua excels at the piaffe, which requires him to bounce on the spot. He can plant his hind legs and spin in a circle, a move the old masters called "romping about on a plate."
"We have a saying," said Humminger, referring to Siglavy Mantua. "Every 100 years, a horse is born. A special horse."