He’s an eight-time Olympian with an individual gold medal from 2004 partnering Baloubet du Rouet, the great stallion that also carried him to the individual World Championship title in 1998 and then three World Cup titles from 1998 to 2000. In 2009 Brazil’s Rodrigo Pessoa won the Grand Prix of Rome with Let’s Fly.

He has enjoyed a stellar career, and at Piazza di Siena today the 52-year-old rider reflected on his love of the Eternal City and its iconic horse show, and spoke about his plans for the week and his eventual retirement from the sport in which he has been hugely influential…

In his own words….

“Rome is an incredible city and the show here is 90-plus years, it’s just an amazing place, an historical location for our sport and it’s always a pleasure to come back. The setting of this arena is just unique. There is nowhere else like this.

“Last time I was here was in 2021, before Tokyo (Olympic Games) as part of our selection process. When you do the calendar in the beginning of the year we always try to mark it down and if everything goes well you always like to come because it’s a special place.

“The arena has been made larger in width and length, it was fine before, but when they redid the footing they gave it a bit more and it’s just magnificent, everything is blooming. It’s one of those places where nothing has changed but a lot has changed and that’s really nice, reassuring in a world where things change quite quickly - we still have trademarks of back-in-the-day so it’s always a special place.

“My main horse here is Major Tom, he will do the Nations Cup and hopefully the Grand Prix. I also have Giorgio that I have since the beginning of the year. He’s in development, he’s only nine and a little bit green so it’s a nice place for him to take a look at, and I brought a third one called Dhalida who goes in Speed classes, she’s quite fast and we hope for a good result with her today and maybe Saturday. They are three nice horses.”

His comeback….

“I went into retirement a few years ago, but then things just kept coming up and as far as I’m concerned I still enjoy the sport very much and I’m very lucky to have great support. That’s what brought me back, the support of great owners who want to do it at the highest level that is giving me the possibility to do it - Mr and Mrs Clarke - and they give me the possibility to do it in a way that is really fantastic.

“I still enjoy competing very much and I know I’m more towards the end of the road than the beginning of the road, very close to the end of the road! But there’s still a bit of road to go.

“There’s still energy, there’s still passion for it and I guess that one day I’ll just wake up and say I really don’t feel like it and that will be it! I’ll be very happy with everything that went on, it could be next month, it could be next year or maybe in two years, but I don’t think it’s going to go much further than 2/3 years.”