Tommaso Lequio di Assaba

Tommaso Lequio di Assaba was an Italian army officer who competed in the equestrian discipline of show jumping in 1920 and in both show jumping and eventing at the 1924 and 1928 Games. Originally from a distinguished military family, he joined the cavalry and by 1920 was already the President of the Italian Equestrian Federation when he competed at the Antwerpen Olympic Games. Riding a mount, Trebecco, that he had saved from being used as a draft horse, Tommaso was a surprise winner of the show jumping individual gold. The combination returned to slight decreasing rewards over the next two Games finishing second and fourth as part of the Italian team in Paris and Amsterdam. He was also a non-scoring member of the third-place team in eventing but it’s unlikely that he physically received a medal for this.

Lequio di Assaba remained on the sports scene until 1935 when his farewell took place in Warszawa, Poland, at the local Nations Cup event where, together with his teammates Fernando Filipponi and Renzo Bonivento (both Olympians), the Italians produced three clear-rounds, Italy won in front of the very strong German team that was seriously preparing for the Olympic Games of the following year. For Tommaso, this was the last of 33 appearances in the various Nations Cups with 16 wins and six second places.

By then a major, Lequio di Assaba commanded a regiment of native Eritreans during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War (1935-37). He became commander of the Tor di Quinto military school in 1942 then left to command an armoured division of the Italian army in North Africa during the final few months before Italy’s surrender and switching sides to fight alongside the Allies. He was captured by the British in Tunisia in the spring of 1943.

Already highly decorated for bravery in two World Wars, he was awarded the title of Knight of the Military Order of Italy in 1947. Although retired from competition, he kept active in the administrative side of his sport and served as team manager and then Federation President during some of the most successful eras in Italian equestrianism. Lequio di Assaba founded a stud farm called La Razza di Montemaggiore, in the hills of the Roman Sabina and in the facilities of the Army Horse Supply Centre.

The FISE, in announcing his death in 1965 remembered “the great soldier and the unsurpassed rider who in life served his country with honour and equestrian sport and gained prestige, in all the highest competitive expressions, by winning the first Olympic gold medal for Italy”. The family remains connected with equestrian sport as his great nephew married the daughter of Michael Bullen and therefore into the Bullen family of Olympic riders,