Laurie Morgan
Australia
Equestrian Eventing
Overall Ranks
#3 among Australian Olympians
#1 among Equestrian Event riders
Olympic Results
1960
Individual - Gold
Team - Gold
Total
Events - 2
Gold - 2
Lawrence Robert Morgan was born on February 5, 1915 in Yea, Australia, and grew up riding horses out in the country. As an adult, he became an Australian rules football player, playing 3 seasons for Fitzroy in the AFL, and was named one of the top rookies in the league in his first season. After retiring from football, he became a cattle rancher for many years.
He suddenly reappeared on the sporting scene in 1960, when he was chosen as the captain of the Australian Equestrian Event team for the Rome Olympics. Equestrian Eventing is a 3-day event, with dressage on day one, where the horse and rider must perform specific movements with minimal prodding from the rider, then a cross-country portion on day two, where the horse must complete a long course with obstacles with as few penalties as possible, followed by show jumping on the third day.
In the individual event, Morgan finished 18th out of 73 in dressage on day 1, which kept him in the running. The Cross Country portion is always the most important, with the most opportunities to score points, and it this competition it was separated into 5 sections. Morgan, on his horse Salad Days, had the best time in 3 of the 5 sections. Only 41 horses completed day two, and two even died during the process, which overshadowed Morgan's performance somewhat.
35 riders completed the show jumping portion, with Morgan near the middle, but he had few enough mistakes during the jumping phase that his cross country score wasn't beaten, finishing 23 points ahead of silver medalist Neale Lavis, also from Australia, who finished more than 35 points ahead of the bronze medalist.
In the team event, 4 riders from each country compete in the same process as in the individual event, with the top 3 in each phase counting toward the team score, meaning that at least 3 must finish each section in order for the team to qualify for a medal. The Aussies were in 6th place out of 18 teams heading into the super important second day.
Morgan again posted the best score in the cross country phase, with his two teammates ending up with the next two best scores, but their 4th rider failed to finish, making him ineligible to participate in the final day. Another Australian rider, Bill Roycroft, managed to finish, but had been severely injured in a fall during the course, suffering a concussion and a broken collarbone, and was admitted to the hospital that evening.
The Australian lead was so large after day two that all they had to do was finish the jumping portion to guarantee themselves the gold medal, but that required 3 riders, and with one rider out, Roycroft checked himself out of the hospital and carefully ran the course in order to earn his team the gold medal.
Morgan never competed in the Olympics again, maintaining his perfect record of winning every event, and eventually passed away on August 15, 1997 in Castlemaine, Australia. His two gold medals in the 1960 Olympics were the two largest victories in those events in history, making him one of the greatest Olympians of all time.
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