There’s just one place where Victoria “Tori” Colvin wants to be and that’s in the saddle. She can walk into trainer Scott Stewart’s barn, see that she’s listed to ride 15 horses that day and be perfectly content.

“If you take some off her list to ride at home, she doesn’t like it. She might have 14 or 15 to ride, and she really wants to ride them all. She rides all day long,” said Stewart. Colvin lists Stewart and Ken Berkley as her trainers, but in reality, she’s more of an assistant trainer for them.

“She really can do almost anything. I can send her out to the schooling area to get one ready, and then I just get on and go. She’s way ahead of her age, that’s for sure,” Stewart said.

Ahead of her age is an understatement. Colvin, just 13, has already amassed a résumé of accomplishments that would make any rider envious. In fact, she won her first grand prix on April 23 at the $25,000 ESP Spring 6 Grand Prix (Fla.). And on May 26-29, at the Devon Horse Show Junior Weekend in Devon, Pa., she added some more.

Colvin rode Sanzibar to the grand junior and small junior hunter, 15 and under, cham- pionships and Touchdown to the large junior hunter, 15 and under, tricolor. Along the way, she picked up the Best Child Rider on a Horse honors. Colvin and Sanzibar collected two blues and a red ribbon over fences on their way to the grand junior championship.

Stewart found Sanzibar, 8, as a 3-year-old and developed him. Berkley campaigned the elegant brown Oldenburg (Sunny-Boy—Roxiana) in the first year green division last year, and Stewart’s student, Heather Hooker, showed him in the junior hunters.

“He’s very made up and easy to ride; he’s probably one of her easiest ones to ride,” Stewart said.

Colvin took over the reins on Sanzibar in November. They were champions seven of the nine weeks they showed at the FTI Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.) and claimed the circuit championship there.

“He has an amazing canter. It’s like sitting on a couch,” Colvin said. Amateur rider Karen Long Dwight owns Sanzibar but doesn’t show him. Dwight also had to rely on phone calls to keep up with her horse’s Devon ex-ploits.

“She has a superstition that if she watches her horse go, it won’t go well. So now I don’t think she’ll ever watch again!” Colvin said.

Colvin’s time with Touchdown, the large junior champion, has been a bit shorter but no less successful. Stewart imported the 6-year-old Oldenburg gelding last summer, and he’d only had experience as a dressage horse. Touch-down’s first show was the Capital Chal-lenge (Md.) in October, where he competed in the future hunter division with Stewart. Colvin started showing the flashy chestnut (Quattro B—Schila) in January.

“The first few times she showed him, I don’t think she got any ribbons, because he was probably the greenest horse she’d ridden. He probably could have been a pre-green horse, but he just has such a good mind. She figured him out quickly. She enjoys working with the young ones,” Stewart said.

In fact, Colvin only showed Touch-down eight times before Devon. Once there, they were first twice and then fourth over fences. Colvin also won a section of the ASPCA Maclay on VIP Z and was second in a junior jumper class on Monsieur Du Reverdy.

Colvin didn’t take off after all her wins at Devon; she stayed for professional week to help Stewart prepare horses for the ring.

Spicing Things Up

Hannah Goodson-Cutt can check one more accomplishment off her junior rider career checklist. After she and Caretano made a clean sweep of the indoor shows last fall, she earned her first Devon championship with the bay gelding.

Caretano and Goodson-Cutt, Beverly Hills, Calif., won the small junior hunter, 16-17, stake and handy classes to clinch the tricolor.

“In my first round [at Devon], I was a little bit conservative, and then [for the handy and the stake], I spiced it up a little bit, and we were a bit more on top of our game,” said Goodson-Cutt.

The win was bittersweet because Goodson-Cutt, 17, has decided to put her riding career on hold in the fall when she starts her college education at Georgetown University (D.C.).

“It’s a complete change. I wanted to be able to have the option to work on school for a while. Riding has always been No. 1, and I want to try something different and really commit to school,” she said.

Hasbrouck Donovan, 16, also arrived at this year’s Devon without a memory of a tricolor there, though she and Quality Time have been consistent winners in the large junior hunter, 16-17, division. She changed that by riding the elegant bay to first, second and third over fences to take the championship honors.

“He felt much more relaxed and comfortable here than he did last year,” said Donovan, Gainesville, Fla.

“He’s a bit of a lazy horse, and it takes a lot to get him going, so the handy round isn’t always our strength.”

But Donovan inspired Quality Time to a lovely handy round, including a daring inside turn to the last oxer, which won the class and clinched the championship.

Quite An Improvement

Charlotte Jacobs left last year’s Devon Junior Weekend with one blue ribbon from an equitation class.

“This year, I wanted to do as well as last year, so to win this is a huge deal for me,” said Jacobs, who collected the Ronnie Mutch Equitation Championship and the junior jumper tricolor. Jacobs, 16, rode Stallone VDL to blue ribbons in a section of the Pessoa/USEF Medal and a section of the Washington Equitation Classic, as well as a third place in the Platinum Performance USEF Show Jumping Talent Search.

By the last class—the ASPCA Maclay—she knew just what she had to do to defeat Michael Hughes for the championship.

“I knew to be tied with him I had to be fourth or above that to win. I went in and did my best, and my horse was great. We were third, so I just got enough for the championship,” Jacobs said.

“This is such an important show. There’s so much history here; you walk in the ring, and your heart is beating so fast, thinking, ‘Oh my God, it’s Devon!’ It’s very special to win here,” she continued. Jacobs was thrilled with the equitation championship, so when she topped it off with a win in the Show Jumping Hall Of Fame Junior Jumper Classic and the junior jumper tricolor, she was over the moon.

“I’m speechless!” she said.

“I never imagined this.” Jacobs, East Aurora, N.Y., rode Karonda V Schl’hof CH to the jumper honors. She bought Karonda, 12, last fall. The chestnut mare had plenty of mileage in the junior division