Rome’s Piazza Di Siena is a colossus of show jumping
The CSIO Roma Piazza di Siena celebrates 100 years of international sport in exactly the way one might imagine: by remaining, on the surface at least, exactly as it started.
The Villa Borghese, a sprawling public garden just north of the city centre, has remained largely unchanged since the 17th century. The pet project of Cardinal Scipione Borghese, patron of Caravaggio, was modeled after the gardens of Antiquity, with extensive acreage studded with fountains, temples, and the flat-topped umbrella pines. Here, practically purpose-built, was the home of equestrian sports for the 1960 Olympics – one that allowed the International Olympic Committee to show la dolce vita to the world.
Known as the Piazza di Siena, in 1922 the gardens played host to their inaugural showjumping competition. Exactly a century ago, the event received a coveted recognition from the then-fledgling International Federation for Equestrian Sports (FEI), which elevated its status from Italian hotspot to global significance.
From May 28–31, the competition hosts CSIO5* level showjumping classes. Scattered amongst the showjumping programme is high-goal polo, classical music concerts, and pony jumping classes, in which diminutive mounts worth six figures partner with young riders to tackle fences often bigger than they are. Over the course of the week, over €1 million will be distributed across the classes.
Though all these offerings might seem like obvious signifiers of wealth, the Piazza di Siena remains surprisingly egalitarian. While enthusiasts of the sport might find themselves reluctantly stumping up ever-higher prices for entry at major shows around the world, the Piazza di Siena is free for all. It is an unsung boon for a sport looking to capture interest from a wider audience.
Curious spectators might wander up to the show from the Spanish Steps, curious about the fanfare and spectacle echoing out of the park. Or they might enter via the Viale Piero e Raimondo d’Inzeo, also referred to as the Master d’Inzeo.
The d’Inzeos remain looming figures over the show. Active in the sport for 30 years from the late 1940s to the end of the 1970s, the brothers — Raimondo with his short fuse and attacking, forward riding and Piero, the technical mastermind – dominated Italy’s golden era of show jumping, heading up innumerable teams at Olympics and World and European Championships. In 1960, they took the gold and silver individual medals, respectively, and steered their team to bronze. Together, they contested an unmatched eight consecutive Olympics. Raimondo remains the undisputed king of the Piazza: over his career, he won 64 times at this show.
Their dominance, which made them household names in post-war Italy, also represented a curiosity of the country’s equestrian scene that remains to this day. Though show jumping might seem a rich man’s game, it’s rare for a rider to own his horse — instead, competitors rely on individual or syndicated benefactors, largely operating as private businesses working directly with clients. In Italy, though, this support often comes through the government and its military, in which riders enroll in exchange for horses and patronage. Both d’Inzeo brothers were officers in the Carabinieri, Italy’s national policing unit, and never competed out of uniform — a touch that symbolized national pride and enforced the idea that elite riding could be a pathway for the everyman.
In 2018, the Rolex Grand Prix’s last Italian winner Lorenzo de Luca lifted the trophy for the second time in the uniform of the Aeronautica Militare, Italy’s Air Force. The son of a construction worker didn’t grow up in an equestrian family; he began riding by happenstance as a child when his father was offered a horse in payment for work by a client who would otherwise have reneged on the bill. Years later, Lorenzo found himself on top of the world; the proletariat sporting hero, then-girlfriend Jessica Springsteen — herself an Olympic showjumper, and daughter of the proletariat musical hero Bruce — by his side.
This week, Lorenzo returns to the Piazza alongside 25 of his countrymen, in a 5* entry list that spans 74 riders, 194 horses, and 18 nations. They will compete in the shadows of those umbrella pines in the same arena that their forebears did, though with some canny modern adaptations: like the Paris Olympics in 2024, which had to preserve the protected parkland of Versailles from metal-shod hooves, the organisers of the Piazza di Siena utilise cutting-edge bio-architecture technology to safely remove the natural turf and replace it during the show, both ensuring a foot-perfect surface for competition and protecting the public gardens for their primary year-round use. That effort, plus the funds raised by the show, help to maintain the expansive space and restore its historic architecture, allowing one of the world’s longest-running horse shows to also be one of its most sustainable.
Friday offers the first major highlight on the schedule in the Nations Cup Intesa Sanpaolo, a two-round team competition that also serves as a qualifier for the feature class, Sunday’s Rolex Grand Prix. On Saturday, all eyes will be on the line-up for the Loro Piana Trophy, an individual competition against the clock with a purse of €105,000. Fresh off a decisive victory in TSCHIO Aachen’s Grand Prix last week, Germany’s in-form Richard Vogel will be the rider to watch — but former winners of the big class here, including Ireland’s Cian O’Connor and reigning champion Yuri Mansur of Brazil, return well-equipped and ready. The Piazza may offer a more relaxed atmosphere than the Colosseum, some five kilometres south, but the competition promises to be gladiatorial.
Tilly Berendt