As Allison Sparks galloped around Inavale Farm’s intermediate course, June 16-18 in Philomath, Ore., she encountered a little delay. A rider who had fallen and remounted blocked her way through the woods and couldn’t hear her to let her pass.

Just outside the woods, she knew she’d have to tackle a bank complex, which would require a forward ride.

“I slowed down and let him get ahead of me, so I could ride up to the bank,” she said.

Sparks and Master Of Ceremony still finished fairly close to the optimum time, and officials threw out her time penalties due to her holdup. As a result, she moved up from fifth after dressage to stand second. Then, with a clear show jumping round, she and her 16.2-hand, 14-year-old, Oldenburg cross took the win in intermediate, division 1.

“I just wanted to have a good, positive round [cross-country],” she said. “He just eats up the ground, and I have to ride him forward to go positively.”

Sparks, 21, of Olympia, Wash., has owned “Mac” since she was 12. “He’s brought me up from the novice level, and we’ve learned together,” she said. Her former trainer Dave Greening helped her find Mac in Centralia, Wash. He’d never evented, and Sparks had never ridden anything other than a pony.

“I just wanted to eventually be able to go to the North American Young Riders Championships,” she said. “When you’re that young looking for a horse, you never know what’s going to happen.”

She fulfilled her goal of riding at the NAYRC in 2001, finishing ninth in the one-star. The pair have completed two one-stars and two two-stars.

“I really liked the course [at Inavale],” she said. “The water was different, with a mound coming in. There used to be a vertical coming in, and now it’s a one-stride, so you had to have a little more horse.”

She also mentioned that the event organizers have acquired more land, so the dressage, show jumping and stabling were held on the new property and much improved.

A psychology major at Washington State University, Sparks has one more year of school left. “I definitely want to keep riding,” she said.

She now drives an hour once a week, and before shows, to train with John Camlin. “He’s helped [Mac] jump a lot better than he used to,” said Sparks. “He used to have a bad twist.”

Earlier this season, Sparks had some trouble in show jumping, but she said those days were behind her after a clear round at Inavale. “I was really happy with his show jumping–he was careful and didn’t touch anything,” she said. “We were eliminated at our first event this spring, but John has worked with us on that.”

She was a little disappointed with her dressage, however. “I warmed up too long,” she admitted. “He was going well, then got stiff and a little tense and had his head up in the air. He didn’t really walk–he basically jigged the whole time. The judge must have liked him because he didn’t score that badly [42.1] considering.”

Since she’s owned Mac for nine years, Sparks has a closer bond with him than other people. “He’s not the most friendly horse,” she said with a laugh. “He likes me, but he doesn’t like to be petted, and he definitely doesn’t like my dad, who feeds him in the morning.”

Jamie Lawrence, 18, of Seattle, Wash., said her relationship with intermediate, division 2, winner, Malik, just keeps improving. She’s been riding the sensitive, 13-year-old since he was 9.

“Every year I figure out something new, and it gets a little better and stronger and a little more control,” she said.

Lawrence’s trainer, Michele Pestl, rescued “Mal” (meaning “bad” in Spanish) as a 4-year-old, after a barn roof overwhelmed with snow fell on him. Pestl rehabbed him and leased him to a student who competed him at the novice level. Lawrence then leased him for a year and bought him at the end of that year.

“He’s a very strong, sensitive, kind of a hot guy,” she said. “You can’t force him to do anything; he has to want to do it. It’s been a learning experience for both of us.”

Mal can produce a good dressage test if Lawrence can keep him calm. “I work on my breathing, and this winter I worked a lot on dressage, getting him to bend and relax,” she said. “It seems to have helped quite a bit.”

On cross-country, however, Mal can be quite strong. “Cross-country is always interesting,” said Lawrence, who also competes her Coolnamara at intermediate. “He’s generally honest, but I have a hard time getting him back in time to steer for skinnies.”

At Inavale, she said the course was on the smaller side. “It rode well, but I had to make sure to slow him down a little more than maybe I would for a larger course,” she said.

The pair completed an advanced division at the Twin Rivers Horse Trials (Calif.) last fall, and Lawrence hopes to move him back up to advanced at the end of this year. “I’m hoping he takes me to a three-star eventually,” she said. “I hope that he teaches me all he can before he gets too old.”

Lawrence will start her first year of college this fall at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, where she plans to study biology and chemistry on the pre-med track. “Although everything is liable to change at this point,” she said with a laugh.