Summary

On September 10, 1944, an air raid signal pierces through central Vienna. Alois Podhajsky, director of the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, evacuates his prized Lipizzaner horses from their usual stalls into a sheltered hallway across the courtyard. These horses are "unlike any other in the world" and are "as priceless as any of the masterpieces that hung in Vienna's museums" (xviii). At the center of World War II, Vienna's "finest specimens of the equine species' most rarefied breed" are in danger as Podhajsky can see "no obvious path to safety" (xviii). A boom rips through the building, glass shatters, dust fills the air, and all Podhajsky can do is wait.

Analysis

In the opening pages of The Perfect Horse, author Elizabeth Letts compares the Spanish Riding School's Lipizanner to artistic masterpieces. This simile establishes their financial worth as some of Austria's most prized possessions. More...