At the 1952 Olympics, Major Rook failed to finish in the three-day event but the following year he won gold medals in both the individual and the team events at the European Championships. On his second Olympic appearance in 1956, Rook placed sixth in the individual competition and was the second scoring member of the British team which won the gold medals in the three-day event. After attending Oakham School and Brackley College, Laurence Rook served initially with the maritime Artillery, which provided gunners for merchant ships, and when that regiment was disbanded in 1942 he joined the Royal Horse Guards, serving in Egypt and Italy where he won a Military Cross in 1944. After his retirement from the Army in 1954, he farmed first in Sussex and later in Gloucestershire and took an active part in the administration of the sport. He was the technical delegate for the International Equestrian Federation at the 1959 Pan-American Games in Chicago and at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Mexico City, and Montréal. He also served as chairman of Britain’s Horse Trials Committee from 1973 to 1980. Major Laurence Rook’s Olympic gold medal is on the display at the Household Calvary Museum at Windsor.
Great Britain