11/10/2024
In Memory of Alf Athenstaedt 1938-2024
Alf’s Solo
by Esther Buonanno
When his music started, we could hear it from an adjacent storage barn behind the stallion stables. My cousin Jennifer and I went there in our party dresses and patent leather shoes while guests were seated at the performance arena. “The Solo!” one of us alerted the other.
We slid off the pile of soybeans - where we were walking around like in quicksand and touching our hands on the soft-shelled beans. We ran around the back of the arena and were greeted by the late day sideways sunlight. Alf and Conversano Prima Donna had already started their dance. The finale was our favorite part.
At the start of the third piece of music - the finale in passage - the horse and rider would start to float together, up and down to the music. To my child self, it appeared as play; in my memory, I’m dancing along on the gravel behind the benches and the crowd is clapping.
This memory is about 15 years after Alf Athenstaedt came to visit Tempel Farms in 1965. He met my grandfather Tempel Smith who offered him a job. He never returned to Germany after that visit. He would make Tempel Farms his home and his life until his retirement in 2003.
Years later, I would continue to watch Alf ride the solo with my more grown up eyes. Amidst the beauty and correctness of his presentation, there was always an irresistible sense of play in a seemingly effortless presentation. Both horse and rider were doing the dance. It was an artistic expression that transcended its parts; it was art, harmony and music in motion.
For the historians and dressage buffs, in short:
Alf began his dressage studies with Willi Schultheis at 18 years old in the late 50s. As his student, he would study theory, riding, training and competing for 7 years. With Schultheis he had the opportunity to ride well-schooled horses at what was the world’s most successful dressage stables at that time. He would also learn how to train to the top levels of competition. In Alf’s words:
“Willi Schultheis' method was not complicated. It was a very straightforward method for making horses balanced, supple, self-carrying, and then [to] introduce them to the movements. It was a far more simple and straightforward approach than what I see here in the U.S., where the method often carries unnecessary complications and almost a scientific approach, which I think is not necessary.”
Alf credited Schultheis for introducing him to the Spanish Riding School and to the Lipizzan horse through his friends in Vienna.
"I was immediately intrigued with the quiet elegance of the riding at the Spanish Riding School, the absolute accuracy…[At the Spanish Riding School] dressage was practiced for the main purpose of the aesthetic, the beauty of it. [This was] versus the more aggressive, demanding riding of competitive dressage with a lot of pressure."
He moved to Vienna to ride with Chief Rider Hans Irbinger. From Irbinger, Alf would learn the Airs above the ground training. He described it as a natural progression from his work with Schultheis; he learned that the Airs movements are a logical progression of correct, gymnastic training.
"[Levades] are a logical extension of the piaffe, as the ultimate in collection. The horse finally lowers his haunches and does not rear, but slowly raises off the ground in front. There’s a big difference between a rear and a levade."
At this time, Irbinger was supervising the training of Tempel Smith’s horses at Fredenau Stables outside of Vienna. This is how it came to be that Alf traveled to Tempel Farms to meet Smith. The midwestern facilities at Tempel Farms at that time were a far cry from the baroque palace where classical dressage was practiced at the Spanish Riding School. However, descending from Piber bloodlines the horses were the same high quality and Alf started from scratch with them. Alf stayed true to his passion for dressage training for beauty and from the system of foundational training as means to developing top horses. He was an elegant rider and was loyal to the goals of the Tempel Farms program.
Alf was responsible for the foundation of dressage training at Tempel Lipizzans and the elevation of dressage to a higher standard in the midwest and around the US. In 1967, he performed Grand Prix freestyle in Saratoga Springs at the opening of the first US Dressage association, the American Dressage Institute. He performed moving public performances around the country, including the Chicago Stockyards, Arlington Race Track, Washington International Horse Show, the US Capital, the White House Lawn and Madison Square Garden. Alf and his performances were the manifestation of Tempel Smith’s dream to bring the art of classical horsemanship and the Lipizzan horse to American eyes.
In the 1982, after Tempel Smith’s death, the Tempel Smith family opened their private property to public performances. Alf helped further the mission by riding in and directing performances over another 20 years. Alf successfully and artfully trained Lipizzans for nearly 40 years at Tempel Lipizzans and directed performances. He remained loyal to 3 generations of the Tempel and Esther Smith family years after his departure, returning every year with his partner Laurie Hedlund. He was family to us. His legacy will live on in those of us motivated by and supportive of beauty and partnership in horsemanship.
