The Lipica Stud Farm is the reason the village exists and the reason to visit. Founded in 1580, it is one of the oldest continuously operating horse-breeding establishments in Europe, the origin of the Lipizzan breed, and the source of the white horses that have performed at Vienna's Spanish Riding School for over four centuries.
Guided tours take you through the stables and paddocks where mares, stallions, and foals live. Foals are born dark — grey or black — and whiten over six to ten years, a process that is oddly moving to watch in action when you see horses at different stages of the transformation. Classical dressage performances are held several times a week in the indoor arena, riders in formal black tailcoats putting horses through the haute école movements: the piaffe, the passage, the levade. The performances are precise and worth seeing even if you have no particular interest in horses.
The farm also offers horse-riding lessons, carriage rides through the karst landscape, and a small museum covering the breed's history and the farm's eventful past.