Roberta Anderson

Alisa Berry and her partner overcome extreme adversity to return to the show ring as champions.

There’s an old proverb that says it’s the journey, not the destination that’s important. And sometimes, as Alisa Cline Berry has discovered, the journey can change a person’s perspective about what constitutes success.

The veteran grand prix rider outraces a former junior star for the win aboard S&L Willie.

One more stride might have made all the difference for Tracy Fenney in the $50,000 Grand Prix of Roanoke.

Fenny opted to ride the distance between a vertical-to-vertical combination and the next oxer on Linda Allen’s course in five strides rather than the four that most riders chose.

She and Trick take over the lead with a clear show jumping round.

With a win in the Virginia International CCI* under their belts, it’s hard to believe that Valerie Vizcarrondo and Trick have only been working together for six months.

Last December, Vizcarrondo saw a video of the 15.3-hand, off-the-track, Thoroughbred gelding and bought him sight unseen from an Oklahoma jumper sales barn.

The amateur rider wins with her homebred.

Mary Messinger of Hillsboro, N.C., epitomized the happy amateur rider as she sat in the barn on a bale of hay, excitedly calling friends and family.

Messinger was broadcasting the news that she’d won the Region 1 adult amateur training level championship, one of the largest classes at the Great American/USDF Region 1 Championships, Oct. 25-28 in Lexington, Va.

Even if you couldn’t hear the announcer relaying his winning time to the crowd, you would have been able to tell that Pato Muente smoked the jump-off course to win the $50,000 Grand Prix of Roanoke. Muente’s exuberant celebration in the ring would have tipped you off.

“What the crowd wants is a good show,” the 32-year-old native Argentinean, now based in Middleburg, Va., said jubilantly following the win. “I am Argentinean, and we are a little bit of a show-off. I admit it.

Mary Lisa Nicholson Leffler gave herself an early birthday present by winning the $25,000 Encore Grand Prix.
   
Leffler and the 12-year-old, gray Hanoverian mare, Gerona 92, jumped one of only seven clear first rounds out of the 33 entries who attempted Pierre Jolicoeur’s grand prix course at the Lexington Spring Encore, May 9-13 at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, Va.

Competing in her final year as a junior rider at the Keswick Horse Show, Kacy Jenkins was honored as the best child rider on a horse after earning the small junior, 16-17, championship with her Signature.

The award is determined by a vote of the judges, and Jenkins said she was surprised and pleased by the recognition she received during the show, held May 17-21 in Keswick, Va.

"It's one of those things that you always hope for," she said.

Lisette Milner spent almost every afternoon last summer riding her 10-year-old, Dutch Warmblood stallion, Eminence, over Pennsylvania's hilly terrain. And at the Great American/USDF Region 1 championships, Oct. 20-23 at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington, the extra hind-end strength he'd gained paid off, with a win in the Grand Prix. "It's not really about the tricks so much," Milner said of her training philosophy. "It's really all about the suppleness of the horse.

Aaron Vale captured his ninth win in the $50,000 Grand Prix of Roanoke at the Roanoke Valley Horse Show, June 25 in Salem, Va.

Vale rode three of his six horses to the top three spots and finished fifth, eighth, and 11th with the remaining three. But this time he wasn't just commuting from Ocala, Fla.--he took time away from his European schedule, where he has been competing with the U.S. show jumping team.

Carol Lavell's weekend at the Col. Bengt Ljungquist Memorial Championships at the Virginia Horse Center in Lexington,Oct. 21-24 started with near disaster.

She was riding Much Ado in a schooling area full of riders when the speaker system emitted an unexpected screech on Wednesday evening, causing havoc.

"Horses were ricocheting off one another," said Lavell, of Fairview, N.C. "I needed help getting him to go back into the ring."