Helga and the White Horses

When on the 11^th of March 1968 at 5:20pm, Helga Anders first rode Boris the Lipizzaner on to the black and white television screens of Great Britain, as Julia she also rode into the hearts of a generation.

And ride she did, to watch her handling Boris/Borej on the screen leaves no doubt as to her riding ability. Helga was sitting comfortably in the saddle at the age of seven, at the age of thirteen she took riding lessons and at the age of sixteen she cantered her way through the thirteen episodes of “Ferien In Lipizza”, known in great Britain of course, as...

                                                                                  The White Horses

It is clear to see that the sixteen year old Helga was thoroughly enjoying making the series in the summer of 1964. Just watch the corners of her mouth begin to turn up in some of the scenes with Franz Muxeneder (Stanko/Hugo), or Helmut Schneider (Onkel Dimitrij/Uncle Dimitri) as she threatens to “corpse”, and they were not immune to being on the verge of “corpsing” either. Everybody seemed to be having such fun making the series, but it was not without some hazards.  

When in January 1968 Helga was asked the question “When did you have the biggest fright of your life?” by a fan, she gave the following answer: “That was when I was filming ‘Ferien In Lipizza’. I had to take my horse into a deep cavern. The whole film crew were waiting in there. There were only a couple of lanterns to light the way and what seemed like an enormous underground river down there. One time, during a break in filming I went by myself to the river. I was quite close to a waterfall which roared and thundered all around me, suddenly the lights went out. I certainly couldn’t find my way back out of there and besides I had seen loads of cracks and holes earlier. After a while my mother was wondering where I had disappeared to, so she got the whole film crew to look for me. After a little time they found me crying and shaking. That time gave me an incredible fright.” Another fan asked “Do you really love horses as much as it seemed in ‘Ferien In Lipizza’?”, Helga answered: “I’m really crazy about horses. I don’t have much free time, but when I do I just love to ride!” Helga, it seems, was well known for her love of horses and never missed an opportunity when she could ride. So when she was filming “Das Rasthaus der grausamen Puppen” in Trieste in the very early months (January or February or March) of 1967, it comes as no surprise that she looked up some old friends just across the border in Lipizza. Helga was reunited with the now twelve year old “Borej”, his real stable name was “Theiss” and twenty three year old Ivan (his real name in life and in the series) who had become a Jugoslavian Dressage Master in the three years since the series had been filmed. When Andrew visited the stud at Lipica (Lipizza) in 2004 he was still able to find people who remembered the series being filmed. Below is a picture taken during the filming of White Horses .