At the start of the jump-off for the $65,000 Budweiser Grandprix de Penn National, Laura Chapot knew she had a chance to score her second consecutive victory in the class. But she also recognized that it wasn’t going to be easy.
“I knew it was going to be close. When you have Laura Kraut and Kent Farrington going after you with those fast horses, you can’t take it easy,” she said. The class concluded the Pennsylvania National, Oct. 16-21 in Harrisburg, Pa.
Chapot returned third of nine for the jump-off, and the first two to go had pulled rails. She knew she had to not only go clean, but also set the pace for the rest of the field to chase. But she and Little Big Man are masters of setting the pace, and they sped around the turns and left strides out to stop the timers in 33.37 seconds with a clear round.
“He’s an incredible horse–he’s fast and clean and he loves the game,” she said.
It was a pace no one could match. Farrington and the speedy Madison beat Chapot’s time by almost a full second, but two rails fell. Kraut set off on Miss Independent with a quick gallop, but when the third fence fell, they settled for fourth. Megan Johnstone on Ollandaise and Schuyler Riley on Nottingham chose to ensure clean rounds, winding up in second and third, respectively, with slower trips.
The crowd cheered on Chapot and “Pony,” a pair who have a style and charisma all their own. Standing a mere 15.2 hands, Pony jumps as off springs, and Chapot dares to gallop him flat-out.
“I think that his success is, in part, due to the partnership we have. Not to brag on my skills, but I think my ride really brings out the best in him, and I’m not sure that everyone would want to ride him the same way. He means a lot to me,” Chapot said.
The class was a World Cup qualifier, but the FEI World Cup Finals–to be held next year in Las Vegas, Nev.–aren’t necessarily a goal for Chapot and Little Big Man, 11. She’s eyeing the Pan American Games (Brazil) next summer as a possible target.
The win clinched their open jumper championship and the leading rider title for Chapot for the second year. And Chapot’s mother, Mary Chapot, picked up the caretaker award for the groom of the winning grand prix horse.
“My mom loves it, because it’s such a shopping spree. Last year, she got gift certificates to everywhere, and a grooming box, jacket and sweatshirt. And this year, she got a wheelbarrow full of stuff,” said Chapot.
Speed was the name of the game earlier in the week, too, when McLain Ward topped the $25,000 Pennsylvania Big Jump on Goldika 559 in a thrilling jump-off where he dared to make a turn no one else attempted, hopping over some flowers placed between two jumps.
But even Ward and Goldika were outrun in the $25,000 NAL Open Jumper Speed Finals. The winner of the 2005 Pessoa/USEF Medal Finals in the same arena, Brianne Goutal–in her first year out of the junior ranks–scored the win with a blazing round aboard Onira.
Putting It All Together
Sandy Ferrell has had a rollercoaster year, battling breast cancer (see Oct. 6, p. 8). But she proved that she’s again on the upswing by riding Compliment to the grand hunter and conformation hunter tricolors.
Compliment, a 9-year-old, Oldenburg gelding, won all four over fences classes and took second in the under saddle. “He’s a beautiful horse, a fabulous jumper, with a great disposition. He’s just a very nice horse,” said Karen Caristo, who trains Compliment for owner Stephanie Riggio.
Riggio’s mother, Louise, saw Compliment showing in Florida with Scott Stewart for former owner Molly Ohrstrom, and fell in love with him. Riggio bought him in late July, but because of Ferrell’s illness and treatment, Compliment didn’t show much this summer–Caristo and Riggio kept him going at home. Jennifer Alfano showed him twice at the HITS Saugerties (N.Y.) venue, and Stewart reunited with him for the green conformation championship at the Hampton Classic (N.Y.).
Ferrell took the reins at the Maryland Horse & Pony show in September. “I have to say, anybody who has to follow in Scott Stewart’s footsteps has a lot to live up to,” Ferrell said. “We’ve had some good and bad days since then, but each time I rode him was a learning experience. I just had to figure out the kind of ride he likes. His greenness is only around the ends of the ring. You have to ride him the way he’s the most comfortable, even if that’s not the way I’m the most comfortable.
“Now we’ve gotten to the point where we got it all put together. It was a team effort, for sure. I think it’s a little bit of a personal achievement, especially for Karen and I, because we kind of fumbled our way through the last few weeks trying to pull it together. It’s nice when it all pays off,” Ferrell said.
Before their second place in the under saddle, Ferrell and Compliment had been tied for the grand championship with Gray Slipper and Louise Serio, who claimed the regular working hunter tricolor earlier in the week.
“Slipper” and Serio had battled it out in the regular workings to defend their title from last year. They traded wins in each class with Alfano and Once And Again, and the last over fences class would decide the title.
Unfortunately for Alfano, Once And Again stumbled at the first fence–a misstep that broke their flow and dropped them to seventh place in the final class and to reserve for the division.
Bringing Bridget Hallman’s 10-year-old gelding along since his spooky pre-green years makes victory all the more satisfying, said Serio. “It always feels good to win. I think anytime you start with a pre-green horse and bring him all the way along, you really develop a rapport and understanding with him.”
Though Slipper was prone to spook in his younger years, “It’s made him a careful horse,” said Serio. “He has a fantastic jumping style but also huge scope. The bigger and longer the lines are, the more he can show himself off. All those combined–jumping style, scope, carefulness–make a great horse.”
Overcoming Odds
Tasha Visokay spoke four words that said it all after stepping out of the ring aboard Roxana: “I’m going to cry,” she said beaming. In her first return to the Pennsylvania National since riding there as a New York-based junior in 1991, Visokay earned her first championship at Harrisburg in the first year green hunter division.
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Owner Jennifer Stillman imported Roxana just before the HITS Desert Circuit (Calif.), and Visokay got the ride in the first year division, while Stillman shows the 7-year-old mare in the junior hunters.
“She’s really come a long way in the last six months and is just really starting to hold her own,” said Visokay. “[Jennifer] got to ride her in the juniors here last week so she actually got her ready for me. I was lucky to get her after she’d already been in the ring,” said Visokay. “We don’t have indoor rings in California. But after last week, I knew she would be awesome.”
Still, Visokay’s nerves were hard to calm. “I’m usually better if I’m not standing on top, but the nerves usually make me ride better,” she said.
Roxana seemed to know her way around the ring well but sometimes tends to be a bit opinionated. But the key to a good ride, said Visokay, is “just don’t fight with her because you won’t win. She likes to be a princess, and I let her.”
Holly Orlando and Rio Renoir quickly reignited their spark and renewed their winning ways at Harrisburg after a less than ideal trip to Capital Challenge (Md.) two weeks before. With fresh focus, 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.
But Orlando’s week didn’t start quite as she planned. “Rio” uncharacteristically wheeled and took off snorting in the schooling ring just before the first class, which raised some eyebrows and unsettled nerves.
“He never spooks! We don’t even know what he was looking at,” Orlando said of Brad Wolf’s usually tranquil Canadian Sport Horse. “So [trainer Tom Wright] said, ‘Let’s just go in there.’ 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.”
Lara McPherson and Tenerife were all business as well on their way to the NAL Adult Amateur Hunter Finals victory. “This was something I thought about early in the year that I’d like to win,” said McPherson. “When you have a horse as wonderful as him, and you get to a venue like this, it’s nice when it all comes together.”
McPherson is on a roll with the 6-year-old, bay gelding–they won the WCHR Adult Amateur Classic at the Capital Challenge two weeks before.
“He’s just pretty much the same every time he goes in the ring. I’m little, and he rides like a pony, but he’s got a big step. He’s really straightforward, and he goes from the stall to the ring,” she said.
Trainer and friend Miranda Scott bought Tenerife last year. “A friend of hers called and said she found him in Ireland, and did Miranda want him? Miranda was going to think about it, but next thing we know, there’s a phone call that he’s in the air on his way. But he turned out to be a great horse,” said McPherson.
She’s leased him for the year, and Scott shows him in the first year green divisions as well.
McPherson, McLean, Va., is a self-employed graphic designer and also helps Scott with entries, office work, braiding, and clipping, to pay her way.
Going All Out
Megan Johnstone may have settled for the conservative clear round for second in the grand prix, but she put up a valiant fight for first in the Show Jumping Hall of Fame Amateur-Owner Jumper Classic. Johnstone lost her stirrups on a tight rollback turn with Kiss Me Des Joncs but carried on to take the lead in the class.
But Cara Raether upped the drama, riding Pedro to a clear round almost a second faster than Johnstone’s. “I didn’t see Megan, but I know Megan, so I knew she’d be really fast! I watched the others, and they all went fast,” Raether said.
“Usually, he’s a very hot horse, and I have to hold him back, so when I let him loose today, he was very fast. I got an easy one to fence 1, so I got a great turn and was really fast to the second vertical. I just went as fast as I possibly could,” she said.
Raether has had Pedro, a 14-year-old Belgian Warmblood, for 21�2 years. “He just really couldn’t show FEI all the time, so we decided to keep him in the amateurs, and he’s happy there and does really well, so it’s fun,” she said.
Raether was a familiar face in the junior jumpers in the 1990s, but she hasn’t shown consistently in the United States until last year. “I spent from 2000 to 2004 [riding and showing] in Europe, and before that I was in college, so I wasn’t doing that much riding,” she said. Raether graduated from Trinity College (Conn.) in 2000 with an art history major.
She now rides with Beezie and John Madden, and she’s been making her mark on the grand prix circuit as well, taking third in the $100,000 Wachovia Securities American Gold Cup (Ohio) in September on Quilano de Kalvarie.
The times just kept getting faster and faster in the NAL Adult Amateur Jumper Finals. And in the end, Sandra Willekes emerged as fastest on Juventafee.
“I thought I could be faster because of the first two people who went, one cut inside to the second jump but did eight strides, and one didn’t do the inside cut to the second fence. So, I figured if I did the inside cut in seven strides, there was a little time to make up there,” Willekes said.
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Willekes, 29, is a veteran of the amateur-owner hunter divisions at the Pennsylvania National, but this was her NAL jumper finals debut. She sold her hunters in 2004 and took over the ride on her sister’s equitation horse, Altura. They won the 2004 Ariat National Adult Medal Finals (Md.) together and dabbled in the jumpers.
But Juventafee was the one who helped make the switch complete for Willekes. She’d bought the Dutch Warmblood mare 10 years ago, importing her from Europe, and Juventafee had shown in the low preliminary jumpers. But an injury took her out of action, and veterinarians told Willekes to retire the mare.
“I gave her five years off, and she had three foals. After her last foal, she became sound in the field again, so we started riding her. I didn’t know where it was going to go, but here we are,” she said.
Willekes leased Juventafee, 15, last year, and the mare showed in the low jumper divisions. But she took back the reins this year and began winning in the adult divisions. A full-time job as a branch manager of a mortgage company in Parsippany, N.J., keeps Willekes from traveling to Florida for the winter circuit, but she shows as much as she can.
And, since she kept all three of Juventafee’s foals, she’s now branching out into the breeding business. Juventafee won her keuring inspection in Europe, so Willekes has taken all three foals to their keuring inspections and shown them in the breeding divisions at Dressage at Devon (Pa.). She kept the colt, Waterford (by Consul) a stallion, and plans to stand him.
First-Timers Take Charge
When Maria Takacs and Lesley Bulechek walked in together to accept the co-grand amateur-owner hunter championship, it was hard to tell who was more thrilled. Takacs had ridden Mombo to the amateur-owner, 36 and over, tricolor, while Bulechek guided Vida Blue to the amateur-owner, 18-35, title. The wins were the first Pennsylvania National tricolors for both of them.
“I showed here in 1985 with my junior hunter Ice Palace, and I think I maybe got a seventh or eighth. And I’ve shown here and won ribbons since, but this is by far the biggest win I’ve ever had,” said Takacs.
The race for the championships had come down to the very last class, but Takacs and Mombo took the blue and clinched the tricolor.
“When I was on top of the standby, I needed to walk away and not worry about it, so I went to the toy store stand and bought toys for [my two children]. That way, I wasn’t watching and worrying about it,” Takacs said.
Takacs, Rumson, N.J., used to have a full-time job in New York City and show frequently, but she took a few years off to concentrate on her family. Her children are now 31�2 and 11�2 years old. “In the last four years, I’ve had two children, but I’ve been able to spend more time riding than I did. I’ve definitely become more competitive,” she said.
She bought Mombo in March 2005, while she was pregnant with her daughter, so she didn’t even get to try the chestnut gelding. But she trusted her trainers, Rolf and Jennifer Bauersachs, who found Mombo for her.
“He’s just an amazing amateur horse. He’s quiet–this morning, we hand-walked him. We try and preserve his energy as much as possible. We laugh and say that we need to give him a Powerbar before he goes to the ring,” Takacs said.
Takacs had ridden with the Bauersachs before and started back with them in 2004. “Jenn has taken my riding to a whole new level. She really believes in me and keeps it very simple. She’s given me a lot of confidence,” said Takacs.
And while he’s not a horse person, Takacs’ husband has helped her gain a winning edge. “My husband infrequently comes to watch me ride–he’s out playing golf right now–but he’s really helped me mentally. He was a college football player, and he’s helped me become more competitive. I’ve been figuring out how to handle the pressure,” she said.
Takacs gives her trainers much of the credit, but if it weren’t for trainer John French, Bulechek wouldn’t have even been showing at the Pennsylvania National. She didn’t buy Vida Blue until March and wasn’t sure she’d qualify for the fall indoor shows. She told French to just enter Vida Blue in the second year green division at Harrisburg, with himself riding.
“But he entered me anyway, without telling me, because he knew I’d change my mind.” she said. “Thank God he did–he gets major bonus points, knowing me better than myself!”
The surprise paid off when Bulechek, Los Altos Hills, Calif., and Vida Blue won both over fences classes on the first day. But the championship race with Bridget Hallman and Gray Slipper got close when Vida Blue had a rail in the first class on day two.
“I don’t think, in the entire time I’ve owned her, she’s had a rail down. So it was a total shock to me. It didn’t really feel like she hit it that hard. She usually gives every jump so much air that it never occurred to me that she’d have a rail,” Bulechek said.
“Going back in, I was overriding the oxers a little bit. When I got to that jump, I was ready for it, and she jumped so hard that I got left a little bit.” But their second round was good enough for a fourth place, which clinched the championship.
“I’ve never won here. I came here a lot as a junior and my first amateur year, and then I went to college and didn’t come,” Bulechek said. This was her first appearance in Harrisburg in five years.
Bulechek graduated last year from the University of California, Los Angeles, with a degree in psychology. “I’m taking two years off, and then I’m going to be going to law school. These are my two years to ride as much as I want and have fun. When I go to law school, the fun’s going to be over,” she said.
And Vida Blue, 8, a Holsteiner mare, is the perfect horse to keep her entertained. “From the very beginning, I knew she was going to be a horse of a lifetime. She’s the horse most people would dream of riding,” Bulechek said.
Molly Sorge