WT: It’s obvious an incredible amount of research went into this book, which tells the horses’ stories from so many different perspectives. How did you approach the research? EL: This project was daunting! I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into when I started. But I soon real- ized that I couldn’t just focus on the American perspec- tive of these events. The German perspective was not very well documented, however, and the history of the Span- ish Riding School largely stops in 1938, when it was taken over by the Nazis, and only restarts in 1945 when the war ended. The school and its leaders wanted to ignore that period. So it was a real challenge to research this book and fill in those gaps. I thought it would take me a year to write it. Instead, it
took me a solid four years of work. In that time, I made one extensive research trip overseas, visiting Austria, Germany and the Czech Republic.
WT: What surprised you the most as you researched and wrote this book? And what were your biggest takeaways from the process? EL: What surprised me the most is the connections between Nazi philosophy, eugenics and the horses. (Editor’s note: Eugenics is the science of improving a population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable characteristics. It was the Nazis’ desire to use eugenics to create “the perfect horse”—just as they hoped to create “the perfect person.” This led them to gather some of Europe’s finest horses at several centralized farms.) On the American side, I found it fascinating that the
Army was still training cavalry horses during World War II, a time when I thought it was focused on tanks and other machinery. And I found it very poignant that horses were still a part of the Army. Cavalry officers, they spent their lives with their horses. They came of age as horse people. That was the moral spirit that guided them as they went to war. And that was true of the Germans in this story too. Their
loyalties were to the horses first. They risked being shot for treason to save these magnificent horses. As the war was winding down, so many Germans stuck with Hitler simply out of fear of being shot, which was a very real fear. Yet these men were willing to risk that to save these horses. Had they not had the good fortune to run into American
colonel Hank Reed, though, a cavalryman and a true lover of horses, the outcome of their efforts would have been very different. It was just plain serendipity that they met the man they did. Even after he took control of the horses, another Army unit was nearby and was pushing hard for Reed’s troops to abandon the farm. What did I take away from the process? Don’t ever write a book that has half of its sources in German if, like me, you speak fluent English and French but not a word of German! Also, I was afraid that when I got into all the research,
I would be disappointed. I was afraid that the real story wouldn’t be as heroic as I’d hoped. But it was, it really was.
TOP: The famous Arabian stallion Witez II, born in Poland in 1938, who survived the chaos of war and was eventually imported to the U.S. in 1945. Witez II was purchased in 1949 by Earle E. and Frances Hurlbutt of the Calarabia Ranch in California who owned him for the remainder of his life until 1965. He sired 223 offspring, ten of which were in Europe before coming to America. BOTTOM: George S. Patton in 1914 on the steeplechaser Wooltex. Patton was an avid horse- man who served in the Army’s cavalry division and competed at the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm, Sweden, in the modern pentathlon, placing fifth.
Warmbloods Today 33
After rescuing these horses, the Second Cavalry went
on to liberate not one concentration camp but two. What made those men feel hope, what gave them the strength to go on in such horrifying circumstances, was the beauty they saw in the horses they had rescued. It really made a difference for them. It was a hard decision Col. Reed made, because he put men’s lives at risk to save these horses. And the mission did cost lives. I love horses too and truly believe they can inspire us all, just as they did for the men of the Second Cavalry.
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