To honour the white horse breed of Lipizzaner, the Slovenian Association of Lipizzaner Breeders has been marking Lipizzaner Day for the past four years remembering 19 May 1580 as the day when Archduke of Austria Charles II bought a stud farm and a deserted mansion in Lipica.
The horses take their name from the village of Lipica (Italian: Lipizza) where they have been bred since the 16th century. Lipica, located in the southwest just near the border with Italy, is the oldest European stud breeding the same horse since its start.
More than 200 Association members take care of around 500 Lipizzaners, of which more than 400 belong to the Lipica Stud Farm. Together with the farm, the horses have been protected as cultural heritage of utmost importance since 1996.
Having been open to visitors since 1960, the Stud Farm is visited by some 110,000 tourists a year, mostly from abroad. Not all of them come to see the horses, though, as Lipica has also become know for gaming and golf.
Wars have made Lipizzaners move several times in the past, and it took lengthy negotiations before the allies returned eleven horses back to Lipica after WWII. The rest was handed to Italy and to the Spanish Riding School in Vienna.
Lipica has been in the red for several years now, mostly for two reasons: it lost a EUR 835,000 gaming license fee in 2003 to three local municipalities and has hotels and catering services which are not making any profit.
While its loss in 2005 was around EUR 835,000, Lipica is expected to be up-and-running again in 2007. The government intends to help it by transforming what is now a public institute into two units: a stud farm performing public services and a tourist company subject to corporate law.
Two more moves have been considered to facilitate its operations: decreasing the herd to 358 horses this year, the number the Agriculture Ministry considers appropriate for the size of the farm, and encouraging golf tourism.
It was the recent decision to expand the golf course that has been much criticised by the general public for the fear that it could drastically cut the area available for horses. Miha Brejc of the Lipica Stud council has rejected such claims.
The Stud Farm employed 191 people at the end of March, but plans to lay off ten.
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