Four foals died as a result of an attack by a pack of wolves. The episode took place on Tuesday, in broad daylight, at the state stud farm of the Lipizzaner horse of Crea (Council for Research and Analysis of Agricultural Economics), a short distance from the municipality of Montelibretti.
The attack on the farm on the outskirts of Rome
According to the testimony of those who witnessed the scene, two wolves were put to flight by farm staff while a third had already left. His attack cost Rubina, a two-month-old filly, very expensive, who was mutilated by predators. Three other horses collapsed after the herd attacked.
A heritage to protect
“Only last Sunday in Lipizza, along with seven other European countries, the inscription, which took place on December 2, 2022, of the ‘Tradition of breeding the Lipizzaner horse’ was celebrated on the UNESCO list of the intangible heritage of humanity”, commented Luca Buttazzoni. , manager of Crea and UNESCO reference for the Lipizzaner horse. The name of the breed, which sees 110 copies in the stud 40 km from Rome, derives from the town of Lipizza (Lipica), today in Slovenia, where in 1580 a stud was created for the imperial court.
The history of Lipizzaner horses
The Montelibretti kennel is the only one in the world made up entirely of the “classic” founding lines of the Lipizzan breed, which are entirely descended from the breeders bred in Lipizza before 1919. It is a living historical and cultural heritage, an authentic “conservation center ” of the breed, proudly Italian for more than 100 years.
At the end of the First World War, the Lipizza Imperial Stud Farm was divided between Italy and Austria. In Austria, the breed found a new kennel near Graz and continued to be used for shows by the Spanish School in Vienna. In Italy, however, the Lipizzans were returned to Lipizza, which had turned Italian. Used by the Germans during World War II, they were saved by General George Patton and returned to our country in 1947. Since then, to allow their conservation, they have been transferred to the Montemaggiore farmhouses, near Montelibretti, where the stroke. of the wolves
The Lipizzaner and the return of the wolves
“Since 1948, the mild climate of the Roman countryside has allowed us to keep horses grazing all year round: for more than 70 years, horses have had a great time, grown healthy and strong, and been able to freely interact with each other. . displaying an incredible variety of social behaviours”, commented Luca Buttazzoni. The return of a predator like the wolf, increasingly sighted in the province of Rome, represents a novelty that must inevitably be taken into account by those who breed these precious horses.
