Now, it’s official. There’s nothing left for Brianne Goutal to win in the equitation ranks. By clinching victory today, Nov. 6, in the ASPCA Maclay Finals, she put the lid on all four major equitation titles. This year’s Maclay and Pessoa/USEF Medal Finals wins, added to her blues in the USET Show Jumping Talent Search-East finals and the Washington International Equitation Classic Finals last year, make her resume complete. Today’s competition concluded the Syracuse Invitational Sporthorse Tournament in the OnCenter complex in Syracuse, N.Y.

But fresh face Kacey McCann, just 15 and in her first Maclay finals, pulled off an impressive second place behind Goutal. “This was a big surprise,” said McCann. “I really just came here to have personal success—just getting a ribbon was more than I hoped for. To be second is unbelievable.”

McCann, whose mother runs a riding school in Palmyra, Pa., is a working student for trainers Susie Schoelkopf and Jennifer Alfano. She shows catch rides, and works very hard in the barns. “She’s a role model for all the other kids in the barn. She’s always in the barn working. I think she’s a very talented child,” Schoelkopf said.

Julie Welles has a similar story—her mother is the director of riding at Ethel Walker School (Conn.) and, since she’s on a limited budget, Welles puts in long days as a working student with trainer Missy Clark. She won the WIEC Finals and the USEF Show Jumping Talent Search-East this fall, and placed third in the Medal finals. Welles looked poised for a big win today, being called back on top after both the first jumping round and the flat phase. But a few mistakes in the second round over fences dropped her down to fifth in the end. “She just didn’t have quite as good a trip in the afternoon,” was all George Morris—who judges the class alongside Susie Humes—would say.

But Goutal’s win today didn’t come as easily as it had three weeks before, when she led the Medal finals from start to finish. This time, Goutal, 16, had to fight her way back to the top. In the first round, she had a rail, and was only placed fourth in the call-back for the flat phase. And then, she dropped to fifth after the flat portion. “After I had the rail in the first round, I was thinking that I couldn’t be conservative on the rest of the trip. I really tried to hand-gallop the single oxer and be impressive,” Goutal said.

“And then, I’m not really the best on the flat. I was expecting to be moved down a little there,” she continued. Goutal’s horse, Logan, while a machine over fences, doesn’t present as elegant a picture on the flat. Goutal sometimes has to work hard to get him round, and he isn’t a floaty, big mover.

But she made up for it in the second over-fences round, pulling off an aggressive, yet elegant trip to move all the way up to first in the end. “When I walked the second course, I saw that there were lots of places to leave out strides and do inside turns. We came up with a plan to take all the chances, and my horse was great—I couldn’t ask any more of him,” said Goutal.

Goutal’s trip down and up the standings was typical of the day’s events. Jessica Speiser, who claimed third, started out the flat phase standing 19th. But beautiful riding on the flat, with a classic, relaxed position, impressed Morris and Humes so much that they moved her up to seventh going into the second over fences round. And then a solid trip vaulted her into the yellow ribbon.

Sloane Coles, second behind Goutal in the Medal, just had a few small, but costly mistakes today. In the first round, she missed a lead change behind going into a rollback turn. She was called back sixth for the flat phase, which is where the judges kept her after the flatwork. But the same left-to-right lead change eluded her again on another tight turn on the second course, and Humes and Morris put her eighth in the end.

Hardin Towell began the day with a beautifully flowing round over the first course, putting him into third place going into the flat phase. But Towell’s horse was consistently behind the bit on the flat, and he looked a bit stiff. He stood ninth going into the second course. But another smooth, forward-ridden round bumped him back up to fourth.

Josephine Nash looked poised to challenge Goutal, with a lovely ride in the flat phase moving her up from fifth to third before the final round. And while she appeared to put in another elegant ride over fences, the judges chose to drop her to 10th in the final results. Morris’ only comment on that decision was “It was just the round she rode. It was about speed, and line and impulsion—all the things you need to do right,” he said.

Lauren Hester, who also used the flat phase to advance up the ranks from 10th to fourth, had a few major problems over the second course. She knocked a block off the top of the brick wall, then found a very deep distance into the one-stride combination. Another deep distance to a vertical helped drop her from the top 10 entirely. Addison Phillips rode a lovely second round over fences to move up from 10th after the flat to sixth in the end. And Maggie McAlary moved from 23rd after the first round, to 10th after the flat, and then into seventh place. In fact, Kacey McCann was the only rider to maintain her place in the standings throughout.

The first-round course for the Maclay really separated the riders. It looked pretty basic on paper, but thoroughly tested all the skills. It started out over a solid wall covered in ivy, with no rails or wings. Quite a few horses looked hard at this fence, and many riders didn’t ride it aggressively enough. From there, riders had to serpentine over an oxer, and then ride a line across the diagonal of the ring. An oxer, followed in a very long three strides by a narrow white vertical, then a tight three strides to an oxer. Riders then had to make a sharp rollback out of the end of the ring, to a skinny white, wingless vertical set just two strides off the rail. Another rollback to the left brought another short approach to a skinny white vertical. They then had to negotiate another hairpin turn 180 degrees in the short end of the ring, and then accelerate to hand-gallop a long approach to an oxer on the diagonal. Then came a vertical, and a bending six strides to an oxer-oxer one-stride, on a short bending approach. They finished over a single vertical just four bending strides later. The questions came thick and fast on the course, with no room for breathers.

Of the Maclay’s first appearance at the Syracuse Invitational, most had only positive things to say. “It would be a little bit premature to say it has a home here-hat’s going to depend on a meeting of the board,” said National Horse Show board member Leo Conroy. “But we were very pleased with the horse show and the events here. It was beautifully done.”