Biography
I started riding at the age of eight. I don’t come from a horsey family and to be honest it wasn’t planned that I would end up at the Olympics, but thanks to the support that my Mum has given me I succeeded in going all the way up and I now compete at the top level amongst the best riders in the world.
I went to a German school in Milan and after my final exams in 2000, I decided to move over to the UK to train and compete the horses. While I gained experience in England I was reading Politics at University in Italy, I had the opportunity to do that as it was an open university: I lived in the UK, studied and then flew to Italy for the exams. I finished and got my degree in '04 and at the same time I joined the Carabinieri, who are now part of the military but were originally the Italian Royal Guards when Italy was still a monarchy. In '06 I met my future husband Simone, who’s Italian, and we decided to go back to Italy to live. We got married in '08. At the end of that year I decided to get a second degree, this time in Economics. I usually return to Brynley Powell’s yard in the UK during the summer as it is definitely too hot to work properly in Italy and there are no competitions at all!
I started competing for Italy in 1998 at the Junior European Eventing Championships and since then I have been on the team every year. I had the great privilege to compete at the WEG '02 in Jerez de la Frontera when I was still a Young Rider (I was 21 years old at the time) and that was my debut at Senior level. Since then I have ridden many horses at 3* and 4*. In '03 I started riding Ava with whom I finished 9th at the European Championships in Punchestown and took part in the Athens Olympics '04. Then in the '07 Europeans in Pratoni we won the bronze team medal. We also competed at the Beijing Olympics '08, Badminton and Burghley '06, Badminton '08 and '09 and Burghley '09. Ava is the horse I ride the most, and the relationship we now have is amazing. I
Apart from Ava I have other two mares: Blue Moss, who I competed in Boekelo CCI*** '08, and Fontainebleau CIC*** and Luhmühlen CCI**** '09. We were part of the Italian team at the Europeans in Fontainebleau '09 but did not finish. However Italy won the silver medal thanks to my team mates. The other mare is Carrera, who I have ridden since the end of '04. We finished 13th at the Europeans at Blenheim in '05 and took part in WEG in Aachen '06.
At the end of '07 I bought another mare, this time a Grand Prix dressage mare called Dark Surprise, to commence a parallel career in pure dressage. Despite my very little experience in this discipline (I have only ridden seven Grand Prix tests in my whole life) I managed to qualify for the European Championships in Windsor '09. I will try to get more work done with "Dodo" during the winter so that we’ll come out in '10 scoring a more competitive percentage and I am looking forward to WEG '10 in Lexington with her, and hopefully one of my eventers too!