July 7, 2026 
After nearly two decades living in Belgium and the Netherlands, Italy’s Piergiorgio Bucci was feeling, in his words, “heavy… deep within.”
He missed his home country of Italy—the culture, the food, the people. And so, in the beginning of 2026, at the age of 50, the rider born in the medieval hill city of L’Aquila, 75 miles northeast of Rome, returned to his homeland.
Maybe it’s something in the San Pellegrino, or maybe it was a longing for roots that Bucci had been unknowingly missing for years. Whatever the case, the Italian rider’s homecoming has also corresponded with his most winning Grand Prix season to date.
Currently ranked at No. 15 in the world, Bucci has rocketed nearly 80 placings up the Longines Rankings in the space of one year. It all began with a third-place podium finish in the LGCT Grand Prix of Miami Beach in April with Pallieter VD N. Ranch. Two weeks later, the pair were victorious in the LGCT Grand Prix of Mexico City—Bucci’s first LGCT Grand Prix win in a decade.
But the Italian was just getting started.
One month later, Bucci and Pallieter VD N. Ranch took home their biggest coup to date: the Rolex Grand Prix at the 100th edition of CSIO Roma Piazza di Siena—a win he’d been not only chasing for 20 attempts, but also dreaming of since he was a child, when Bucci would come to the Eternal City as a fan of that very show.
Ironically, the talented stallion who’s become a standout on Bucci’s string came into his purview through Italian coach Marco Porro, who introduced the show jumper to Pallieter’s owner, Francesca Castellani, one year ago. Appropriately—for the native son who finally came home, and the now-Italian-owned Pallieter VD N. Ranch—their connection was evident right from the start.
“If I ride well, I believe he is a horse that can win any class,” Bucci told World of Show Jumping of the 11-year-old Belgian stallion, now his partner of one year. Indeed, it’s a claim the pair seem intent on proving out, finishing on the podium again last weekend in the LGCT Grand Prix of Monaco (pictured), having been just-pipped by Brazil’s Stephan de Freitas Barcha by 20 tenths of a second.
That podium finish comes on the heels of yet another 5* victory for Bucci, this time with the 14-year-old KWPN gelding Hantano in the Rolex Grand Prix of La Baule in June.
In fact, with three 5* 1.60m Grand Prix wins to his name already this year, Bucci currently sits in the third place overall, just behind World No. 2 Richard Vogel (GER) with five total victories, and World No. 3 Scott Brash (GBR) with four, according to Jumpr. He’s also the fourth-ranked show jumper in the world for prize money, earning more than €628,000 already this season.
Now based near Milan, Bucci says he feels new motivation for the sport, even while he’s deliberate about the amount of shows he schedules, and the questions he feels comfortable asking of his horses. Despite his success on the LGCT circuit this season, he elected not to compete at in Cannes, worrying that it would be too much for his string.
And Bucci has withdrawn Pallieter VD N. Ranch from consideration for the 2026 World Championships in Aachen, wanting to allow the still-maturing stallion extra time to progress at the top of the sport without feeling over-faced at a major championship. His goal, he says, will be to save Pallieter for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games.
It’s a slow and steady approach; one that prioritizes good horsemanship over paychecks and international glory. All things being equal, a lesser horseman, mounted on what is possibly the best horse of his career, might feel pressure to succumb to those heady temptations. But not Bucci.
With decades of experience behind him, the Italian rider remains resolute: he trusts his program, and chasing ranking points to his horses’ detriment isn’t a part of the equation. “With horses, luckily, we have a very long career if we are lucky. So that’s what I always kept in mind,” Bucci told the Rolex Grand Slam of Show Jumping in a video interview last month.
“I was never too stressed when I saw, maybe, people much younger than me winning more than me or achieving things that I still didn’t achieve. I always thought my chance would come, and I’ve enjoyed every moment [so much] of my career, and every [horse] that I had.
“When you’re approaching the horses, there should be no stress and no rush, because they need to understand what we want from them, what their job is,” he added. “They should be able to enjoy the work that they do.”
