Bored police horses

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In Jerusalem I would from time to time see mounted police riding around, usually just outside the Old City (e.g. as in my posts here, here, and here).
Today was my first time to see a police horse in Beer Sheva.
He was just standing in the shade near the Central Bus Terminal.

On the vehicle towing the horse trailer is written Mounted Police Unit, Southern District.
Wait! -- Is that horse in the drawing wearing a gas mask??
THAT I've never seen, but I guess it would be needed in riot control.
Actually, maybe it's just my imagination working overtime, maybe he just has a black nose.

I walked in back and discovered a second horse.
Really wanted to ask the officer in charge if I could talk to, I mean pet, one of the nice horses.
Alas, he was in the middle of an animated conversation on his phone and didn't even notice me.
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(Linking to Camera-Critters.)
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Black horse, white horse

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A Lipizzaner stallion stuck his beautiful head out of his box stall at the Spanish Riding School.
It was a rainy Sunday in Vienna.

And in a dim attic in a century-old Vienna apartment building I found this old flat metal votive horse.
It had come to Austria from a church in Greece.

These photos are what I could come up with for our CDP Theme Day on "black and white in color."
See what other bloggers are posting for the next two days at City Daily Photo website.

In 2015 UNESCO inscribed the Spanish Riding School in The Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity! 
You can see more about the Lipizzaners and their palace in my earlier posts.
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Horse Yiddish

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What is a funny old way of saying "a distant relation" in Yiddish?

Dem ferds baytsh-shtekls potkeve   
דעם פערדס בייטש-שטעקלס פאטקעווע
Literally: the horse’s whipping stick’s horseshoe!

And what do I miss most about Vienna?
Her beautiful horses clip-clopping around the palaces!
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(Linking to Our World Tuesday.)
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Silent horses

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Fiaker carriage horses in Vienna.
And another Yiddish saying:

If a horse had anything to say, he would speak up. 
ווען דאָס פֿערד װאָלט געהאַט װאָס צו זאָגן, װאָלט עס גערעדט
Ven dos ferd volt gehat vos tsu zogn, volt es geredt.
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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So many saddles!

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The guided tour of Vienna's Spanish Riding School takes you into the impressive tack room.

Some 70 Lipizzaner horses live in the stable and each has his own Baroque dressage saddle.

The Spanish Riding School has 170-175 riders.
It takes years of training and they start anywhere between the ages of 16 to 25.
In recent years a small number of horsewomen have been admitted to what was always an all-male academy.

Stirrups are fastened up behind the saddle.
Riders need strong legs because some of the riding and the airs above the ground are done without stirrups.

Above each bridle is the stallion's name.

For more information and links about this wonderful place in wonderful Vienna please see my previous posts. 
For those of you reading this on "PhotoManiac Daily pictures," a Blogspot "blog"  that steals real bloggers' posts and publishes them without permission or attribution, you can find me at Jerusalem Hills Daily Photo.
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Classical horsemanship in Vienna as a Cultural Heritage of Humanity!

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Ach, just a few weeks ago I was here in Vienna; how I miss that city!
It was raining that Sunday when I first saw the Hofburg Palace.

At its gates, Christmas market booths  were doing a brisk business with hot Gluhwein.

Inside the palace is the most beautiful riding hall in the world, a Baroque masterpiece outfitted  between 1729 and 1735.
It was originally built to give aristocratic youths an opportunity to take riding instruction.
The two men in my photo were installing a new sound system in this Winter Riding School for the international audiences who come to see the Lipizzaner stallions perform.

Emperor Charles VI commissioned the building of the arena.
You can faintly see a tall painting of a white horse.
The guide on this tour explained that the monarch later had his own image added so that it became a portrait of himself on horseback.

Guide Sophia was good at explaining everything in just one hour.
She was strict, though, that we should not take pictures of the horses or the stables. :(

Till today the tradition is for the riders to doff their hats to that same portrait of  the emperor when they enter his arena.
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I'll soon have another post or two about Vienna's wonderful Spanish Riding School. 
You can see my previous posts here and here, which have links to more information about the horses and the school. 
The BIG NEWS is that the Spanische Hofreitschule has just now been inscribed in UNESCO's 2015  Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity!!
Be sure to see what they tell about classical horsemanship and see the photos at the bottom of the page, plus a wonderful video! 
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(For ABC Wednesday, V is for Vienna!)
(Linking also to Camera Critters. )
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Lipizzaners in the shop windows

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Want to buy a Lipizzaner stallion?
(Or how 'bout a pewter soldier?  Enlarge the photo to choose one.)

 
The Viennese are very proud of their performing Lipizzaner horses, and if you gaze into the shop windows in stores all around the Spanish Riding School you find SRS souvenirs.
Christmas tree ornaments, pencils in the shape of a horse head, diaries, key chains, cap and gloves . . .

Spanische Hofreitschule calendars and even WINE.
A mug saying "I'm the best horse in the stall."

And books in German and English.
There were tons more horse things in the official gift shop in the palace.
But I took pictures only of the shop windows in the neighborhood, remembering that December 1 would be Theme Day on that subject over at City Daily Photo bloggers group.
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The best and only souvenir I came home with is my 13-Euro ticket for a guided tour of the stables, tack room, and arena -- and the memory of being so close to these magnificent horses.
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Lipizzaner stallions, Vienna!! Part 1

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A white Lipizzaner stallion!!!!
Two weeks ago in Vienna my childhood dream came true and I got to meet these fantastic horses of the Spanish Riding School in person!

Click on the photo above and see horses in their box stalls (on a rainy Sunday).
These historical stables of the Lipizzaners are in one of Vienna's few Renaissance buildings, the Stallburg. 
The guide said that it was badly damaged in World War II bombings but after the war the building, with its beautiful arcade courtyard, was restored according to the original plans.

 Horses are exercised in this horse walker in the courtyard;  45 minutes a day they enjoy being outside in the fresh air.

It is the world's biggest oval horse walker.
See how it works in this nice video!

I'll show you more pictures of the Spanish Riding School in the coming days.
Meanwhile you might watch this beautiful documentary on YouTube .
All the information and more clips are at the SRS website.
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Peace and quiet and horses

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I am happy to be here in rural Austria for the next month, especially after  hearing  about tonight's terrorist attack in the Beer Sheva Central Bus Station.

I went for my first walk in the woods and in the countryside today.
The silence was deafening.
The most exciting part was watching this beautiful horse rolling on the earth.

She saw me and got up and came over to the electric fence to say hello.

Later, on Am Kreuzweg road that leads up to my host community, two more lovely horses came by.

Should have asked for a ride, no?
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(Linking to Camera Critters.)
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Even horses do the rain dance

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Jumpin' for joy to finally see clouds in our sky!
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Linking to SkyWatch Friday.
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"The last great cavalry charge in history"

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These are pictures I took in Sydney, Australia,  in 2009.
Written in the concrete wall is

TO THE HORSES OF THE DESERT MOUNTED CORPS 

Erected by members of the Desert Mounted Corps 
and friends 
to the gallant horses who carried them 
over Sinai Desert  into Palestine
1915 - 1918

They suffered wounds, thirst, hunger and 
weakness almost beyond endurance but never failed.
They did not come home. [*]

We will never forget them.

There is also a plaque in the ground, unveiled on October 31, 2007,

"commemorating the 90th anniversary of the charge at Beersheba which took place at 4.30 pm on Wednesday 31 October 1917.
The success of the charge led to an earlier conclusion of the Desert Campaign in the Middle East in World War I.

             In memory of
the gallant men and horses of the 4th and 12th Light Horse Regiments that took part in the charge and those that made the supreme sacrifice."

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Update 2024:  See more about this memorial in Sydney at 

https://historyservicesnswblog.blogspot.com/2015/04/australian-war-horses-remembered.html
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* Over 29,000 horses were shipped to the Middle East for the war but at war's end, they could not be returned to Australia.  See what was done with them here.

I tell you all this because October 31, 2012 will be the 95th anniversary.
The Australian Embassy in Tel Aviv kindly sent me the invitation partially copied below.

If anyone can attend, the Embassy would like you to RSVP by tomorrow.
I hope to be there for these very special events.

Be’er Sheva Commemoration

Annual Memorial Service

Wednesday 31 October 2012

 

The Australian Embassy and the Municipality of Be’er Sheva invite you to the commemoration of the 95th anniversary of the battle of Be’er Sheva.  The commemoration marks the fall of the Ottoman controlled city of Be’er Sheva to British and ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) troops on 31 October 1917. The historic charge of the 4th Light Horse Brigade of the Australian Mounted Division played a critical part in this major battle.

 

 

The service will take place at the Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery

at 10:30 on 31 October. (Ha’atzmaut St. Be’er Sheva)

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 Other commemorative events:

31 October

Pratt Foundation

8:45   Refreshments and morning tea

9:30  Tribute to the Australian Light Horse Brigade

Park of the Australian Soldier

(Abba Ahimeir St. Be’er Sheva)

Enquiries: Mr Peter Adler, Pratt Foundation 

Be'ersheva Municipality

11:30 Commemoration service

Turkish Memorial Monument

(Tuviyahu St. Be’er Sheva)

Enquiries: Ms Malka Reisner, Be'ersheva Municipality  08 6463910

Society for the Heritage of WWI

15:00 Re-enactment of the charge of the Australian Light Horse

Beit Eshel

Enquiries: Mr Ezra Pimental, Society for the Heritage of World War One -  054 9413155

Be'ersheva Archaelogy Museum

12:00 - 15:00 Temporary exhibition by Sgt. Thomas Henry Ivers, an artist who served in the Australian Light Horse

The Archaeology Museum

(60 HaAtzmaut St)

Enquiries: Mr Goel Drory, Museum Curator - 052 2767113

28th October 

Kinneret Academic College

16:00 Ceremony in Honour of The Australian Light Horsemen at the Battle of Semakh

(Kinneret College, the Sea of Galilee near the historic Semakh Train Station)

Enquiries: Mr Ziv Ofir, Deputy CEO, Kinneret Academic College
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Dear readers, see also Beersheva's Park of the Australian Soldier 
and about this month's re-enactment: The Light Horsemen Ride Again.
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I hope to bring photos of the  war cemetery for Taphophile Tragics  in two weeks.
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Meme mishmash

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Bear with me as I bundle three memes.

Fear not--she is unarmed.

These two are reflecting, in a highly polished and distorted way, the buildings of Jerusalem's Mamilla mall.

For Weekend Reflections.

The hand got into the frame unintentionally.
But now I see it seems to point to the BS on the horse's rump. hmm . . .

We don't often see equines around here, but three horses were tied up under shade trees at our spring down in the valley yesterday.
They wore nice saddles and saddlebags.

Finally, something for Camera-Critters!

First time I have seen the new tram almost empty (well, it WAS just leaving the depot).

The big windows and glass doors make some interesting shadow designs, but this summer we passengers were baking in the sun.
The air-conditioning could not keep pace.
I think the carriages were built in France for a perhaps more merciful French sun.

For Shadow Shot Sunday.

Police horses on a calm walk

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First time for me to see horses inside the Old City walls.
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At least these mounted police were not in riot gear as they are when they ride security for the Palm Sunday procession from the Mount of Olives.
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Maybe they were just headed to the nearby Kishle, around the corner from the Jaffa Gate.
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Now an Israeli police station, it was built in the late 19th century by the Turkish governor as a military garrison (Kishle in Turkish). During Turkish rule and later, during the British and Jordanian periods, the building served as a jail.
The street looks a mess because of infrastructure improvements going on.
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The horses are for Camera-Critters Sunday.
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Pony shadows at the Sea of Galilee

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Tiberias has a nightly market place near the lake for tourists and locals, with all kinds of things to buy or eat.

Once we even saw pony rides!

The harsh projector-like lights above made strong shadows, good for Shadow Shot Sunday .

The string of ponies is a welcome change from my usual cat or bird for the Camera-Critters meme.

Two Arab boys were lucky to ride when their father (in the dark shirt) shelled out some shekels.

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Mounted police

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During Passover vacation week I was happy to catch sight of two beautiful horses going down Agron, a busy street in Jerusalem.

The trailer was being towed by this police truck.

On the door is written "Mounted Police Unit, Jerusalem District."
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You don't see them out and about very often when the situation is calm.

The photo above and the one below are from Palm Sunday 2007.

The mounted police were part of the security for the throngs of pilgrims walking from the Mount of Olives down to the Old City.
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Mighty nice horses those mounted police have!

And that is my M for ABC Wednesday.

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R is for Reality (ABC Wednesday Part 3)

R is also for Israeli reality.
Riding horses in the Palm Sunday procession from the Mt. of Olives to the Old City. Mounted police are part of the security forces in old Jerusalem.


Riot police (Yasam units) on the ready for any trouble.
  "Remember." One of the plaques at the numerous sites of suicide bombings and terrorist acts, all over the city, many from the second intifada, naming the victims so they will be remembered.

Razor wire.
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