Sandy Ferrell has had a tough year—she successfully battled breast cancer this summer, undergoing a double mastectomy.  Read the Chronicle’s story about Ferrell’s inspirational comeback here.  She only got back into the saddle—and somewhat painfully—in September.  But she’s stormed back into the winner’s circle, riding Stephanie Riggio’s Compliment to the grand hunter and conformation hunter tricolors at the Pennsylvania National Horse Show, Oct. 16-21 in Harrisburg, Pa.

Ferrell and Compliment took two blue ribbons the first day of the conformation division—the green conformation and regular conformation divisions were combined because there were only two regular conformation horses showing.  “It’s a lot more pressure to go after you’ve won,” said Ferrell.  When they earned another first and a second over fences on Day 2, Ferrell knew she had the division championship, but they were ties with Louise Serio and Gray Slipper for the grand championship honors.  A quick second place in the under saddle put them over the hump and into the grand championship.

“It’s really a little bit of a personal achievement for me and [trainer Karen Caristo],” Ferrell said.  “We’ve kind of fumbled our way through the past few weeks, trying to pull it all together and get him figured out.  It’s nice when it all pulls together. We just had to figure out the kind of ride that he likes.  I have to say, anybody who follows in Scott Stewart’s footsteps has a lot to live up to.”

Riggio’s mother, Louise, had spotted Compliment, a 9-year-old Oldenburg gelding, while the elegant bay was showing in Florida with Scott Stewart.  She put Caristo on the trail, and Compliment became a future amateur ride for Riggio in late July.  But, because of Ferrell’s recovery, Compliment had to go show sparingly.  Caristo and Riggio rode him at home, and he showed twice at the HITS Saugerties (N.Y.) venue this summer with Jennifer Alfano aboard.  And Stewart reunited with him for the green conformation hunter tricolor at the Hampton Classic (N.Y.) in September.

Ferrell took over the reins in September, and they haven’t looked back.  The Caristo family enjoyed watching the win, since Ferrell’s last championship at the Pennsylvania National was with Karen’s mother’s horse, Indian Summer, in 2004. 

It’s been 15 years since Tasha Visokay last showed at the Pennsylvania National.  Then, she was a junior rider from New York—now, she’s an accomplished professional from California.  And she made her return a winning one, riding Jennifer Stillman’s Roxana to the first year green hunter championship.

After five classes, they’d collected two blue ribbons and one red for their performances over fences and placed fifth in the hack. But before Roxanna pinned the tricolor, Visokay had to manage her nerves.  “I’m usually better if I’m not standing on top,” she said. “But the nerves actually make me ride better.”

“[Roxanna] is really light across the ground and has such a light, soft jump she never wants to rub a rail. She doesn’t canter heavily or trot heavily,” Visokay said of the high-spirited mare. 

Holly Orlando and Rio Renoir quickly reignited their spark and renewed their winning ways after a less than ideal trip to Capital Challenge (Md.) the week before. They earned the second year green hunter tricolor.  “He felt great here! At Capital Challenge we kept trying and trying but it just didn’t really go our way. So we came here with a new attitude ready to go again. It wasn’t easy but it ended up working out in the end,” said Orlando. 

Rio raised some eyebrows before the first class with some uncharacteristic spooking and outbursts in the schooling ring.  “He never spooks! We don’t even know what he was looking at,” Orlando said of the normally quiet Irish sport horse. “Even when we approached the ring Rio was really suspicious. But then he just walked out there and laid it down. He’s all business when he’s in the ring.”

Louise Serio and Gray Slipper traded wins in the regular working division with Once And Again and Jennifer Alfano.  It all came down to the last class, but Serio and “Slipper” managed to pull off another victory and claimed their second consecutive championship at Harrisburg. Slipper and Serio won two over fences classes and the under saddle, and placed second and third in the other over fences classes. The two classes Gray Slipper didn’t win, Once And Again and Jennifer Alfano topped which kept the pressure on.

Unfortunately for Alfano, in the last class, Once And Again stumbled and left short at the first fence, which broke their flow. They fell to seventh place in the final class and to reserve for the division.

The last fence proved the clincher in the North American League Children’s Hunter Finals as well.  Peppercorn and Catherine Tyree came to the second round in second place, with a first-round score of 85.   She turned in another brilliant round, scoring an 87 to put all the pressure on her good friend, Salli Slack on Melanda.  Slack was leading after Round 1, with an 87.

But at missed distance at the very last fence of Round 2 brought Slack and Melanda a score of 69, and dropped them to eighth place.  “I was so happy to win, but it was also hard because I’m really good friends with [Slack],” said Tyree.

In the NAL Children’s Jumper Finals, Nicole Bellissimo had not only a learning experience, but also a victory.  She’d ridden Curastella in the 14-horse jump-off, and had pulled a rail in a quick time.  She wasn’t about to make the mistake again, and when she galloped in on Coach, she was on a mission.

“In the jump-off you really had to leg up all the lines and make really tight turns to get the right distance,” said Bellissimo of Conrad Homfeld’s tricky course.  Returning fifth to jump-off, they jumped faultlessly and none of the 13 other entries could catch their 32.88-second time without rails.