May 31, 2026 
“I have no words to explain,” says Piergiorgio Bucci. “They asked me already in Italian and I didn’t find words in Italian—imagine if I could find in English!”
Words come anyway: “It’s my dream when I was a kid, I was dreaming to win this Grand Prix, it was even too big to dream of it, you know, and now I have this amazing horse and an amazing owner and an amazing team, they’re all here, all here. I’m so happy, my family, my team, my rider that does everything for me and for my horses, my groom—it’s not only my victory! This is a real big team, big victory for all the team. Thank you to everyone!”
There is little doubt you’ve heard the news: on this, the 100th anniversary of the CSIO Piazza di Siena horse show, an Italian rider has taken the top prize in the 500,000 euro Rolex Rome Grand Prix!
And just when we feel we’ve recovered from Friday night’s tequila (¡Viva México!), we’re grabbing for the grappa, because whether you’re Italian or not (I can claim to be 1/8th from my great-grandfather on my mother’s side), the fervent patriotism of the thousands of spectators in the Villa Borghese, looking down on the delicious dish of the Piazza di Siena, will have you belting out “Inno di Mameli” with the best of them!
If you’re beginning to wonder why you are reading this article, attempting to live vicariously through someone who is also attempting to live vicariously through the livestream, thousands of miles away from all the beauty and the passion, I’ve got to tell you this:
You must change your life.
I know, I know, I’m always falling back on Rilke, (I just found myself saying, over my grappa, “Hell yeah, procreation’s gonna flare tonight!”) and maybe you should too. We should all have been in Rome!
Put it on your bucket list and you tell Liza to make sure there’s no hole, because before you die, you need to find yourself on the brim of that delectable oval, which has been the site of this beautiful equestrian competition for the last century.
But maybe we should talk about what happened in that arena. Forty-five starters from all over the world over a course of 13 obstacles and 16 efforts.
It didn’t seem too challenging from the outside, but the variable surface (there is an uphill and a downhill) asked for subtlety in the riding. Oddly, the second jump, the iconic Rolex wall, was hit with an unusual frequency. Both the double and the triple combinations had poles that seemed to want to jump onto the ground and that last line? The one with the “horrid” planks? Those wavy planks that I also saw in Aachen, an apparent new trend, off a rollback and leading to a nasty skinny oxer to finish the course?
It was all treacherous.
To fool everyone into complacency, they’re given a generous Time Allowed. No one is out there fighting for time, except—with the top 12 returning, knock a rail and suddenly a fast four-fault score gets you into the second round.
And knock a rail they did. So suddenly everyone IS out there fighting for time, zipping around the course like they’re Valentino Rossi. Which more often than not, led to more rails.
The first half brings us only one clear: Richard Vogel. Or should I say CLOUDIO and Richard Vogel, because I really got a crush on that grey stallion who “knows he is a man.”
One clear, and 8 four-faulters (by the end, there will be 14).
By the second half, the riders have done their figuring, mastered the track a bit, and we add six more clears, letting the five fastest four-faulters into the second round.
The second round begins in reverse order of score, so up first are our four-faulters. None improve their score, adding faults, except Team Sweden’s Wilma McMahon with her one-eyed mare Cicci BJN, who become one of only two riders to make it through the second round without dropping a rail.
Closest to victory is Germany’s Jörne Sprehe, and with the best time: 39.01. But the last fence comes down. Her teammate CLOUDIO makes his mistake sooner, taking down the first fence and notching in a slightly slower time of 41.67. The Germans populate the podium, but not the top.
Then comes Bucci and his mount Pallieter vd N.Ranch, an 11-year-old Cornet Obolensky stallion. They’re eighth in the order, with four riders to go, so the double clear at 42.01 is hardly an assured victory.
But no one can do it. No one can give a double clear today, none but the triumphant Italian. The win is his—and his horse, and his team, and his family, and his groom, and his country, and the joyous multitudes that hang over the Piazza di Siena.
Let the tears and the grappa flow!
Viva L’Italia!
