Ghost Riders

The astonishing story of American GIs joining forces with German soldiers in the closing days of World War II to save the world’s finest horses As the Red Army closes in on the Third Reich, a German colonel sends an American intelligence officer an unusual report about a POW camp soon to be overrun by the Soviets. Locked up, the report says, are over a thousand horses, including the entire priceless herd of white Lipizzaner’s from Vienna’s Spanish Riding School, Europe’s finest Arabian stallions. The horses are worth millions and, if the starving Red Army reaches the stables first, they will kill the horses for rations. The Americans, under the command of General George Patton, whose love of horses was legendary, decide to help the Germans save the majestic creatures. So begins “Operation Cowboy,” an epic untold story from the waning days of Word War II, when German and US soldiers fought together to save the horses Hitler stole to create a “master breed.” Drawing from newly unearthed archival material, family archives held by descendants of the participants, and interviews with many of the participants published throughout the years, Ghost Riders promises to be the definitive account of this truly unprecedented and moving story of kindness and compassion at the close of humanity’s darkest hour.