After Hardin Towell waved goodbye to High Cotton when he sold the flashy chestnut last fall, he didn’t think they’d ever visit the winner’s circle together again.

Little did he know that he’d end up riding him to the grand championship at the Show Circuit Magazine/USEF Junior Hunter Championships?East, on Aug. 1-2 in Saugerties, N.Y.

High Cotton and Towell began on top, winning the handy class. They then placed fifth in the under saddle, and earned second in the stakes class to clinch both the small junior, 16-17, and grand junior hunter tricolors.

“I knew in the stakes round he was going to be a little tired, and I knew we probably weren’t going to be able to win that. He had a rub, but it was good enough to win the whole thing. He gets tired, and you have to keep him happy in his mind,” said Towell.

Towell had imported High Cotton, 7, two years ago, after having found him as a 5-year-old stallion in Europe. “We had gone to a bunch of different farms looking at horses, and we just found him at a small farmer’s place. They wanted him to be an approved stallion and a jumper–he had a huge jump, but he just didn’t have enough blood for that,” Towell said.

So, he and his father and trainer, Jack Towell, bought the Dutch Warmblood, shipped him home, gelded him, and began the process of converting him to a hunter. High Cotton showed in the children’s hunters once in 2003, and then debuted in the junior division last year. Towell showed him consistently over the Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.) and the summer, and then they earned the division championship at the Capital Challenge (Md.). After that win, fellow junior rider Christy Russo bought High Cotton.

“In the beginning, he was green and didn’t know where he was going. Then this year, I hadn’t ridden him since last October, and he had matured so much and his mind was so much better,” said Towell. “Going to the jump on him, you can go so slow that you’re thinking that you’re going to barely get over, but then you get there, and he just powers off the ground.”

Towell was especially happy to see High Cotton showing the results of his hard work. “It makes me feel great. I worked a lot with him. My dad and my sister rode him some, but I mostly rode him all the time. It’s quite a nice feeling to have him go so well and be so good,” said Towell.

McCann Can Do It

While Towell was reacquainting himself with his winner, Kacey McCann was just getting to know Trebuchet, whom she rode to the large junior, 15 and under, championship. They also claimed the win in the top-10 classic, which featured the top-scoring horses from each division.

She started riding the former jumper in June, and had only shown him three times before the junior hunter championships.

Their short partnership didn’t stop them from earning fifth in the handy class, then second in the stakes class, for the tricolor. McCann particularly enjoyed riding the handy class.

“The course was great–a lot of fun. They gave you a lot of different options to jump. There were a bunch of different turns you could do, and they had a sheep’s pen–a big box where you could jump in and then out so many different ways. Every person could make the course different from the last,” she said.

Trebuchet, an 8-year-old Dutch Warm-blood owned by Jonathan and Jeffery Phillips, was showing in the open jumper classes this winter but made the transition to the hunter ring in the spring. “He’s an incredible horse. He’s got so much step and scope. You can definitely tell he was a jumper. He floats around the ring and gets down the lines with no problem at all. He’s very powerful, so it took me a little while to get used to him,” said McCann.

But McCann wasn’t too worried about figuring Trebuchet out, since she’s a very experienced catch rider. She rides with Susie Schoellkopf and Jennifer Alfano and only owns an equitation horse. Her multiple rides in the hunter and jumper classes come on catch rides or on sales horses for her trainers.

“It’s fun. Each horse is different, and sometimes one can catch you off guard because you don’t know them. But I enjoy figuring them out,” McCann said.

By the final class at the junior hunter championships–the top-10 classic–she’d gotten Trebuchet all figured out, and they turned in the trip of a lifetime to win. “That was incredible. I’ve always wanted to lay down a trip like that. I jumped the first jump and just rode it like I had nothing to lose,” she said.

McCann, 15, began riding with her mother, who runs a lesson and show barn in Palmyra, Pa. When the opportunity arose to join Schoellkopf and Alfano two years ago, she jumped at the chance.

“I’d always dreamed of being on the road all the time and showing at the big shows,” she said. “When I came to Susie and Jenn, I didn’t even have tall boots yet. They taught me pretty much everything. I’d been doing some [A-rated] shows in Maryland and Virginia, but not like I’m doing now.”

McCann also rode a sales horse–By The Way–for Schoellkopf and Alfano in the small junior, 15 and under, division and was fourth in the stakes class.

Big Dreams, Big Wins

Jessica van Brocklin also knows what it’s like to see a wish fulfilled. For her, earning the large junior, 16-17, championship was “a dream come true,” she said. “It’s the only year I’ve ever done the junior hunter championships, and it’s my last junior year, so it was a big goal for me.”

Van Brocklin, of Alexandria, Va., was particularly happy to win the handy class on her Second Hand News.

“I was definitely nervous–it was exciting and overwhelming. When we won the class the first day, I just knew I had to stay consistent,” she said. “My horse, when we first got him two years ago, couldn’t trot fences. He could canter them fine, but he just didn’t understand trotting fences. So, we’ve been working on that all year, and basically, all our hard work paid off, finally. The trot fence was perfect.”

Second Hand News, or “Coco,” is a 7-year-old, Mecklenburg gelding. James Lala imported him two years ago, and van Brocklin’s trainers, Kim Stewart and Stacey Schaefer, thought they’d be a good match.

“I had a pony that was very difficult. She’d go in the ring and decide that she didn’t want to jump, and I showed her for three years, and it was kind of frustrating,” recalled van Brocklin. “I didn’t know if I’d ever to get lucky enough to have a sweet horse, but he’s the greatest. My mom and dad come to the horse shows, and they all love him. He’s definitely part of our family now.”

Van Brocklin, 17, is headed off to the University of Mary Washington in Fredericks-burg, Va., in September. She plans to finish this year showing at the fall indoor shows, traveling the hour home to ride with Stewart. She also hopes to join her college’s intercollegiate horse team.