The Winter Riding School
Morning Exercise at the Spanish Riding School
The horses at work, in the most beautiful riding hall in the world.
We hold no photograph of this we have confirmed the rights to, so this page ships typographic and says so.
- Three categories, €18.00 to €29.00 — €0.00 booking fee
- The Winter Riding School: Michaelerplatz 1
- QR e-ticket and wallet pass the moment you pay.
Book this
Not on sale
We have no dates for this at the moment. The page stays here — when a date comes back, it appears above.
Everything else on this page is still correct — the details, the prices and the rules.
At a glance
- What
- The Lipizzaners at work rather than on show: an hour in the Winter Riding School watching the riders train their horses to music, in the white baroque hall Charles VI built for exactly this. It is the same room as the performance and a fraction of the price.
- Run by
- Spanish Riding School
- Where
- The Winter Riding School, Michaelerplatz 1, 1010 Wien.
- Prices
- Cat. 1 seat €29.00, Cat. 2 seat €20.00, Cat. 3 standing €18.00. €0.00 booking fee.
- Seating
- You choose the category and how many; the house assigns rows inside it, best available first, your party together where the room allows.
- Tickets
- QR e-ticket and wallet pass the moment you pay.
- Changes
- Free date change until 48 hours before, same event and category, up to twice. Refund dates are printed per line in your basket.
- Booking
- Sold by Vienna Evening, Herrengasse 5, 1010 Wien. The price you see is the price charged.
Where it is
The Winter Riding School
Winter Riding School, Hofburg, Michaelerplatz 1, 1010 Wien
The white baroque hall Charles VI built for classical horsemanship inside the Hofburg, and the room the Lipizzaners have worked in ever since. Cameras are not allowed inside it.
No dates in the current calendar
Know before you book
- About an hour in the Winter Riding School at the Hofburg, on the mornings the school trains. Sessions start at 10:00 or 11:30 — each date says which.
- This is training, not a performance: the riders work their horses to music and the programme is whatever that morning needs. It is the same hall and a fraction of the price.
- Three categories: Cat. 1 seated in the first gallery and boxes at €29, Cat. 2 seated in the second gallery at €20, Cat. 3 standing left or right at €18.
- Three years and over. The school does not admit children under three.
- A date is open or it is taken. The school publishes its own remaining-seat labels and we never repeat them, because those seats are theirs to count and not ours.
Questions guests ask
How is this different from the performance?
The performance is the finished show with a programme; the morning exercise is the training that produces it, in the same hall, at about a fifth of the price. You see the same horses and the same riders, working.
Will I see the capriole and the levade?
Maybe. It is training, so the morning covers whatever that morning needs. The airs above the ground appear when the horses are working on them, which is often but never promised.
What is the difference between the categories?
Where you are and whether you sit. Cat. 1 is seated in the first gallery and the boxes, Cat. 2 is seated in the second gallery, and Cat. 3 is standing at the side. The hall is small enough that there is no bad view, only a different one.
Can children come?
From three years old. Under-3s are not admitted by the school, and an hour of quiet watching suits some small children and not others.
Why do you not show how many seats are left?
Because they are not ours to count. The school publishes its own availability labels; we can tell you truthfully whether a morning is open or gone, and a number from us would be a guess about somebody else’s hall.
What does it cost to book?
Our booking fee is €0.00, and we print it on your order at €0.00 rather than leaving it out. The price is the school’s own.
Can I photograph it?
No. Cameras are not allowed inside the Winter Riding School, which is why almost nobody goes home with a picture of a capriole. Watch it instead.
Getting there
Winter Riding School, Hofburg
Michaelerplatz 1, 1010 Wien — The Winter Riding School
Herrengasse (U3) is two minutes away; the visitor entrance is on Michaelerplatz, under the dome.
About Winter Riding School, Hofburg →Comparing?
Everything we sell, day by day, is on what’s on; the others like it are on spanish riding school.
Performance, training, or backstage
Three ways in
Three different mornings in the same hall; each has its own page of dates once it is listed.
The performance
The school quadrille in the Winter Riding School — the full programme, in the hall built for it.
The morning exercise
Riders working their horses to music — the daily training, watched from the galleries.
The guided tour
Behind the hall: the tack room, the stables and the rooms the audience never sees.
The room
The most beautiful riding hall in the world
Winterreitschule, Hofburg. The plan we draw of it is geometry, never availability.
Winterreitschule, Hofburg
White columns, a chandelier, two galleries.
The royal box faces the length of the hall; the ground-floor boxes sit beneath the first gallery and a second gallery above them. Where you sit is a category in the school’s own names, chosen on the desk when it opens.
What you see
The work, the morning, the house
Schools on the ground 
The morning exercise 
The building on Michaelerplatz
The guided tour
Stables to the attic
The Stallburg aisle with the Lipizzaners’ boxes either side, the tack room and the hall itself — a walk through the working school, led by the school.
The architectureThe roof structure above the hall — the building as a building.
The archiveColonel Podhajsky beside Maestoso Mercurio — the school’s own history.