During one of the shows at Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament in Schaumburg, the huge arena fills with more than a thousand spectators who cheer for the dashing knights and their noble steeds.
Stately Andalusian horses march across the dirt arena, forelegs held high.
In another segment, mounted knights parade around the ring in precision drills, their costumes and banners creating a colorful whirlwind.
And during the tournament, the knights and their squires challenge each other in competitive games and battles, swords, spears and lances flashing.
While the knights may get much of the evening’s applause, the success of their performance depends on the skill of their teammates-the horses.
Now, however, it is a Saturday morning. The theater located in the huge castle complex is quiet except for the sounds of vacuum cleaners and the soft movements of staff preparing for the show.
Add to that the quiet sounds and movements of LeGrande Rohn, head horse trainer for the theater, and one of his pupils, a 6-year-old Andalusian stallion named Gavilon. Rohn sits astride the horse as they practice the routines that will eventually allow Gavilon to perform in the show.
The young stallion flicks his ears attentively as Rohn’s leg movements urge him to perform the Spanish Walk, a “High School” movement in which the horse swings his front legs high in front of him and appears to march.
At one point, Gavilon and Rohn stop to talk to a visitor and the stallion continues to paw with one leg, appearing for a moment to continue to march in place. “He enjoys this,” Rohn chuckles at the show of enthusiasm. “He’s having fun with it.”
Shortly thereafter, Rohn returns to the center of the theater’s dirt-covered arena to begin practicing another move that is greeted by his student with less interest.
The stallion executes the moves well, seeming to hover briefly in the air as he shifts his weight from one side to the other, but he curls his neck and appears to tug slightly on the bit.
“I don’t think he likes lead changes,” Rohn remarks, of the movement. “He talks to me when he does it.”
Soon, though, the workout ends, with Rohn dismounting and heading for the stable area, located up a ramp behind the spectator seats.
“I just started (training) Gavilon six months ago, and he was a real nut,” Rohn says of the horse’s youthful energy. “In another three or four months he will be ready for the show. I want (horses for the show) to be solid, and I try to avoid shortcuts. When you train the classical and correct way, it stays with them forever.”
The classical training methods and the non-verbal “talking” with the horses come naturally to Rohn, of Schaumburg, and the knights who participate in the Medieval Times shows.
The 2-year-old dinner-theater has 22 horses. Eleven like Gavilon are expensive (valued at $20,000 to $100,000 apiece) and flashy Andalusian stallions imported from Spain or Mexico. Or they come from a breeding farm in Texas that is owned and operated by Medieval Times Dinner and Tournament, a corporation based in Spain, which has six dinner theaters in the U.S. and Canada.
Other horses of less exclusive breeds, like quarter horses and thoroughbreds, participate in the games and mock battles that form the centerpiece of the show.
As head trainer, Rohn is in charge of making sure all of the horses are ready and fit and skilled enough to perform in the shows. He oversees everyone, from those charged with feeding the horses on through the training of the knights and squires in horsemanship.
However, most of his time and energy are spent on training and schooling the Andalusians in “Haute Ecole,” or the High School dressage most commonly associated in this country with the snow-white Lipizzan stallions.
The High School dressage demonstrations, such as those at Medieval Times, are examples of an art form that is not usually available to the general public outside of exhibitions by troupes of trained Lipizzan horses that tour periodically or at places such as Tempel Lipizzans in Wadsworth.
Haute Ecole dressage dates from the 16th Century when, according to the Encyclopedia of the Horse, “Riding was first recognized as an art form in its own right. . . . Then no nobleman’s education was considered complete until he had acquired an appreciation of the art of equitation and could ride well. Movements, in imitation of those that it was thought were practiced by the armoured knights, were performed . . .” Those movements include such things as the Spanish Walk and special jumps.
Medieval Times performances differ from the dressage demonstrations performed by Tempel Lipizzans because Medieval Times modernizes some of the traditional patterns. Roberta Creek Williams, director of program development for Tempel Lipizzans, said, “They have a lot more latitude than we do. We strictly maintain the tradition of the Spanish Riding School (in Vienna, Austria); we can’t modernize the way they do.”
Williams added that Medieval Times knights have visited the Tempel Lipizzans and that she and colleagues from the Lipizzan farm have gone to Medieval Times shows. “They respect what we do, and we really respect what they do, but they are very different things.”
Today, in addition to shows such as Medieval Times and the touring Lipizzan performances, dressage is an Olympic sport with international competitions for both amateurs and professionals.
Carol Alm, executive director of the U.S. Dressage Federation in Lincoln, Neb., is delighted that the dinner theaters are bringing the sport to a larger audience.
“I think (the dinner theater) brings dressage to a level where the public can enjoy it,” she said. “Even in entertainment (rather than competition), the classical principles are the same.
“One of the things we have trouble with in the entire horse industry is that we keep talking to ourselves and not to the general public,” Alm added. “Medieval Times has made (dressage) attractive to the general public.”
According to Rohn, the Andalusians appear for the audience during the “pre-show” demonstration of High School training methods, during the opening pageant when they are ridden by Rohn and the Knights, and for the “dancing stallion” exhibition when the character of Ambassador arrives to pay homage to another character, Count Don Raimundo II, who is official host of each performance. Often, in fact, the Ambassador is none other than Rohn himself.
The games and battles that form the centerpiece of the Medieval Times show use the non-Andalusian horses, which “are a little easier for the knights to handle,” Rohn said, because they are generally less high-strung.
The horses that perform in the games and tournaments are purchased locally and trained principally by Greg Hopla, 35, of Schaumburg, the castle’s head knight.
“When we get a new horse, LeGrande checks it out and makes sure it’s sound and can do the work,” Hopla said. “After that he turns it over to me.”
The castle has eight knights, with six participating in any one show, and all the knights have to be confident in their ability to perform the carefully choreographed battles while still controlling their horses. That, both Rohn and Hopla agree, is not easy.
All the knights, Hopla said, begin as squires, whose duties include cleaning and saddling the horses, cleaning stalls and generally becoming familiar with working around 1,000-pound animals. For most, it is a new experience.
“I’d rather take a new guy who doesn’t know anything than somebody who thinks he knows how to ride,” Hopla said.
Finding men who are unfamiliar with horses is not hard, he added. “There are lots of women who ride and know horses, but for guys, it’s kind of a lost art.”
Once the squire has been working for several days, Hopla and Rohn begin him on riding lessons, but some never get that far. “I can pretty much tell in the first two days who’s going to make it,” Hopla said. “Some of them just get too nervous and never really manage to get on a horse.”
Lester Arnold, 30, of Schaumburg has been a knight at the castle for more than two years. While he had ridden before he joined the castle, “it was more or less riding like a cowboy,” he said. “I learned the finer discipline points of riding here. The more I learned, the more I learned I didn’t know.”
Rohn, 30, is a Florida native who literally grew up around (and on) horses. “I always rode,” he said, “but I never got real serious about it until I was around 8.”
At the time, he began learning to ride hunter-jumper horses, but, he said, “When I was about 10, I saw a special on PBS about dressage and I was fascinated by it.”
Even though the strict discipline of dressage was not popular where he lived, the youth found an instructor who could teach the art, and between the ages of 10 and 12 cleaned stalls in return for lessons.
“For the first year (of dressage instruction) I was not allowed to touch the reins at all until I got my balance,” he said. Later, he attended school at Meridith Manor in Waverly, W. Va., one of the nation’s leading horsemanship schools. Eventually, he spent five years riding with the Winter Park, Fla.-based Royal Lipizzan Show where, he said, “I learned the most because there are some really great riders.”
Rohn joined Medieval Times when the first castle opened in Florida in 1982. The founders of the dinner theater were duplicating the success they had in their native Spain, where the dinner-tournament concept originated.
“They were new to this country and they were trying to work out the show for American audiences,” he said.
Rohn left the Florida castle and worked as a trainer in an equestrian center there, then with another dinner theater company before being offered a position at the Schaumburg castle in 1992.
The individual personalities of the horses are constant challenges to their human cohorts.
Arnold was a fill-in knight when he first moved up from squire and “I was relegated to take a different horse each time. It really helps you out because it teaches you to be a pure rider and not just somebody who is used to one particular horse.”
The shows, including Rohn’s dressage performances and the games and mock battles done by the knights, are carefully choreographed, right down to where a knight who is knocked off a horse during the tournament is supposed to fall, Hopla said.
However, the equine actors don’t always follow the script.
“It’s hard learning to do the falls,” he said. “We train to land in a certain spot, but sometimes the horse will move and it doesn’t work out that way.”
Also, knights sometimes fall when the script doesn’t call for it. “I’ve seen plenty of people riding off on the procession and a horse freaks out and spooks at something and there they are,” he said.
Arnold said he has been fortunate. “I’ve fallen off a horse a million times in my life,” he said, “but I’ve never fallen off by accident in the show. The risk is always there, and I’m sure some day the odds will catch up with me.”
He said he is not looking forward to the teasing he will take when it happens. “If I fall off, by the time I get backstage the guys will have a little jingle made up to sing to me for weeks afterward.”
For Rohn, one of the biggest challenges is working with the High School horses and making sure they do as well in performance as they do in practice.
“The horses are a lot different during the day than they are during the show-they try to get away with more during the show because they don’t think I’ll correct them,” he said. “In the horse’s mind the quickest way you get to the end (of a rountine) is the best. When I finish a High School routine, I’ll be dripping with sweat and the horse will be fine.”
Audiences for the show include many people who have no knowledge of horses and, as Rohn said, “don’t realize there is a difference between riding a horse and just being a passenger.”
However, every audience also has some expert horsemen in it and their reactions count a lot, he said. “There are always enough people who appreciate the horse work and they may recognize me and come up and say something.”
One semi-regular audience member is Dr. Ross Hugi of Indian Creek Equine Clinic in Mundelein, one of the Chicago-area veterinarians who specializes in horses. As a vet, he visits the castle regularly to tend to the horses’ medical needs, but he also attends the show.
“I’ve been delighted to be associated with them,” he said. “The horses are well cared for and the show changes often enough that it’s fun every time you go there.”
In addition, he said, the castle has one of the largest herds of Andalusians in the area. “There’s nowhere else where I work with so many Andalusians, and I’ve been very impressed with them.”
Another horse expert who appreciates the Medieval Times programs is Joy Meierhans of Elburn, an event planner who specializes in events involving horses. She has worked with Arlington International Racecourse and coordinates the equine participation in Chicago’s annual Christmas parade, where Medieval Times knights and horses ride.
“Having them in the parade is great, because they are so well turned out and ready for TV. I’m one of those people who feel it’s really nifty to have people enjoy horses because that way they see how much fun it is,” she said. “So much of what the horse industry does is so specialized that only horse people can understand it, but Medieval Times doesn’t do that-they make it entertaining for the general public.”
And for the knights, there are always the children who become fascinated by horses and may, as a result, carry on the tradition of horsemanship. Some, Hopla said, write fan letters to favorite knights or seek autographs.
Others focus on the horses. Rohn fondly recalls one young girl who came up to him after seeing the High School work of the dancing stallion.
“I took her back to the stable and let her see the horse,” he said. “She didn’t believe it was a real horse. She thought it was some kind of robot because she’d never seen a horse do that.”
In that little girl, Rohn confessed, he saw himself, at age 10, watching dressage and saying, “I’ve got to do that someday.”
