Vienna - Ending over 400 years of all-male tradition, the Spanish Riding School in Vienna announced Wednesday it had accepted two women as apprentices to train with its famous white Lippizaner horses.

Now that they have passed a one-month trial period, 21-year-old Austrian Hannah Zeitlhofer and 17-year-old Sojourner Morrell from Britain will spend the next three to five years as students of the dressage troupe before they can advance to become "candidate riders."

"One can't let tradition get dusty," the school's spokeswoman Barbara Sommersacher told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Besides, a ban on women would have violated European Union gender equality norms, she said.

Zeitlhofer told Austrian news agency APA that she had heard no "stupid remarks directed against women" during her probation month.

The organization, one of Vienna's most famous tourist attractions, is rooted in male military tradition, as the horses' elaborate jumps and movements were originally developed for the battlefield.

By and large, the male riders had no problem adjusting to their new colleagues, Sommersacher said.

However, she said the young male riders were more flexible, while "the old ones grew up with the idea that this was something that had never happened in the past."

The two apprentices will not only learn the school's traditional dressage techniques, but will also have to care for the horses and clean the stables in Vienna's city centre from six o'clock in the morning.

While Zeitlhofer said she was determined to complete her apprenticeship, Sommersacher said that there was a high dropout rate among students. (dpa)