Neale Lavis Heritage Highlight

As part of the first Australian equestrian team to ever win an Olympic medal, Neale Lavis OAM is a household name, and the RAS Heritage Centre holds a remarkable collection of medals, clothes and memorabilia, reflecting his brilliant career at the Olympics and the Sydney Royal Easter Show.  

In September 1960 three horsemen from the outback, Lawrence Morgan, Bill Roycroft and Neale Lavis, set off on an incredible journey with their horses to the Rome Olympics. Six long weeks aboard a cargo ship to Europe and a further flight to Rome, were followed by a tumultuous period of competition which saw the trio eventually emerge victorious with a gold medal in Team Eventing.    

Neale, a former rodeo rider and cattle farmer, also picked up a silver medal in individual eventing behind Morgan’s gold and added his Olympic triumphs to an already long list of equestrian successes at home.

Competing all around the country from an early age, by 1950 he’d also started competing in Sydney Royal Shows and in 1957 won the ‘Three Day Horse Trial’ event, receiving the inaugural Challenge  Trophy then presented by the Equestrian Federation of Australia. Neale would go on to win the same event in 1961 and be selected again for the Australian three-day event team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games.

The Lavis Olympic collection of medals, jackets, riding boots and jodhpurs, hardhats, saddlecloths, badges and rosettes, held in the Heritage Centre today embodies the career of a remarkable horseman.  When offered ten thousand pounds for his trusted mount ‘Mirrabooka’ at the conclusion of the Rome Olympics, he’d replied “No way, I’d never sell him”. Testament to the love he had for the indomitable horse he’d bought in Cooma for just one hundred pounds.

Neale eventually retired from competition and became involved in a successful racehorse stud.  Continuing his involvement over the years with equestrian activities at the RAS, he was also conducted into the Sport Australia Hall of Fame in 1989, received a Medal of the Order of Australia in 1999 and received an Australian Sports Medal in 2000. The RAS is very proud to be the custodian of the Lavis collection.