Two women, an Austrian and a Brit, made history by passing the entrance examination at the Spanish Riding School in Vienna, Austria. No woman has passed the exam in 436 years.

The women, ages 21 and 18, must now pass a one-month trial in order to stay and train at the school. Their names won’t be released unless they pass the trial.

The school was founded in 1572, and today riders there continue to train classical dressage and haute école with the world-famous Lipizzan horses.

Candidates for the riding school must submit a written application and then go through an interview and riding audition. Once riders have been accepted to the school, they then spend the next 10 years completing the training to become a rider for the school. Students first work in the stables and learn on the school stallions, and then they are assigned a young stallion for training.

“There never was a ban to hire women,” Erwin Klissenbauer, the school’s business director, told the German Press Agency. But since the organization has its roots in military riding, “naturally there were no women.”

Wiener Zeitung reported that Elisabeth Max-Theurer, president of the Austrian Equestrian Federation said, “I am not happy about this decision. I stress that I am not against women—I am only concerned about tradition.

Max-Theurer won dressage gold for Austria in the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games and her daughter, Victoria Max-Theurer, just represented Austria at the 2008 Olympic Games in Hong Kong.