If your last name wasn’t Oken, then you didn’t stand much of a chance of winning a championship in any junior classes at the Aiken Spring Classic Masters, April 25-29, in Aiken, S.C.

Between them, Alise and Lucille Oken, Charlotte, N.C., took home all three regular pony hunter championships, a large green pony tricolor, the large junior, 15 and under, championship, the small junior, 15 and under, reserve championship and the $25,000 William D. Haggard Memorial Hunter Challenge.

The hunter challenge was a huge win for Alise, who turned 16 the day after the show concluded. She said that having her birthday party at the show brought her good luck as she competed against professionals on her small junior hunter Alisette.

“In the first round I was just hoping to do well, but I didn’t expect to do as well as I did, so I wasn’t nervous at all,” said “Lise”. “I just went in, and I got [the] high score. I was really happy, but in the second round I was kind of nervous because all of the professionals were doing well too. I tried not to let the nerves get to me. ‘Ali’ jumped really amazingly for me, and she was really good, so we pulled it off.”

The classic took place on a big outside course set up on the steeplechase course. “There were very few related distances,” said the Okens’ trainer, Robbie Hunt. “It was a lot of long bending lines and combinations. The course was set up so you had to go in and pick up a bit of a hand gallop and allow it to flow.”

Hunt told Lise just to make all of the jumps match and have fun, although he warned her not to let her mount get distracted by the spectators’ pavilion in the corner.

“She just rode incredibly well,” said Hunt. “She got a 90 on the first round. Going into the second round, we knew she had to be pretty consistent, as good as the first round.

I didn’t put any pressure on her. She was coming back at the end. I just said go have a good time with it. She went out there and rode as well as she did in the first round.”

Lise was thrilled to win against so many other good riders, but it was no surprise that she stayed so consistent. She rode nine horses and ponies at the show, picking up catch rides as she went throughout the week.

“Lise is such a natural, no matter what we ask her to do, whether it’s ponies, children’s jumpers, the junior hunters or equitation,” said Hunt. “She’s better when there’s a lot of pressure. She’s better when you challenge her. Whatever we throw at her, she seems to adapt to it very quickly.”

Hunt has been teaching Lise since she was 11. “She’s such a good student as far as a listener and a trier,” he said. “She’s a hard, hard worker. She’ll get to the barn after school and ride 10 horses in a three-hour time frame. All she wants to do is ride, ride, ride. She never complains.”

All of that riding paid off as she had plenty of energy to ride five ponies, three junior horses and a children’s jumper.

“I got tired on Saturday, but it was a really fun experience for me,” said Lise. “I was glad I got to ride all those horses and ponies. Catch riding is really fun. I like to ride new horses I’ve never done before. It helps my riding, because I have to adjust really quickly to them.”

She’s Movin’ On Up
While she loves the ponies, Lise won’t be riding them much longer. She plans to hand the reins over on her large pony, Land’s End Mad Hatter, to her sister after the Devon Horse Show (Pa.) or perhaps after the U.S. Equestrian Federation Pony Finals in August.

“It’s going to be hard,” admitted Lise. “I really like riding him, but I really want to jump higher and do equitation and jumpers.”

But ending on a high note may make quitting the ponies a bit easier for Lise. She placed first or second with Land’s End Mad Hatter in every class at Aiken.

“He was really good,” said Lise. “He loves Aiken. On Saturday when we were schooling, he was really fresh and bucked around and was really excited. He’s one of the easiest ponies ever to ride. I hope to do really well at Devon, end it really well.”

Lise started riding the junior hunters less than a year ago and only consistently in January. “I love doing the horses. They’re really fun to ride,” said the cheerful teenager.

Her first junior horse was Alisette, a Danish Warmblood who is co-owned by Don Stewart Jr. The pair grabbed the reserve championship in the small junior, 15 and under, division along with the hunter challenge.

“She’s really scopey, and she can jump really high over the jumps,” said Lise.

Then they bought Ashton and leased Southern Style from Kiara Barnett to do the large juniors. Lise earned another tricolor with Southern Style, while Steve Heinecke, who works for Hunt at Hunter’s Lane, won a reserve championship on Southern Style in the second green division and took the green conformation championship on Ashton.

“They’re really big, and I’m kind of small,” said Lise of riding the two large hunters. “I’m really high up. They jump really well, but sometimes it’s hard to stay with their jump. I’m getting used to it. They’re really fun. They can go so slow around the ring because they have huge strides.”

She said that Southern Style goes best slowly, whereas she has to get after Ashton a little bit because he can be quite lazy.

As much as Lise loves her new junior hunters, she’s really excited about finding a junior jumper soon. She earned a second-placed ribbon with Ibiza de Malle in the children’s jumpers at Aiken.

“She’s really fun to ride. She goes fast,” said Lise. “I like the jumpers. You have to find your distances, but they don’t always have to be perfect.”

Equitation may also fit into Lise’s busy schedule. “Originally she only wanted to do the hunters and jumpers,” said Hunt. “Now she’s been a little successful at both of those, and she wants to challenge herself a little more. Her main goal is definitely with the hunters and to get a junior jumper, but we want to filter in some equitation.”

The Little Perfectionist
But the real equitation rider in the family may turn out to be Lise’s younger sister Lucille, 11.

“Her position is so correct, and she’s so accurate,” said Hunt. “She is a little genius. It comes a little harder for her naturally than it does Lise, but she catches on just as quick because she figures it out in her head, studies it and tries to execute it. She’s the one that’s always staring at the ring, studying the lines. She’ll say, ‘I’ve watched that line, and I think it rides a little forward.’ ”

“Lucie” rode her small pony, Hi Lite, and her medium pony, Mea Gold Card, to tricolors at Aiken.

Lucie said that taking a few weeks off from showing prior to Aiken might have improved her performance. “The long break helped me focus and get momentum,” she said. “I did take a couple of lessons, but I was relaxing, having fun with my ponies and hacking them around.”

Like her sister, Lucie is about to move up in her riding career. Hi Lite will go up for sale, and Lucie will start riding the large ponies.

“I’m disappointed because Hi Lite is a great pony,” said Lucie. “But I’m getting kind of big for him, so it’s hard for me to ride as well as I should. I’ll get to do ‘Bubba,’ which is Land’s End Mad Hatter, in the larges, so I’m really excited about that.”

Lucie said that one of the reasons she loves riding Hi Lite is that he makes her laugh because he’s unpredictable. “You never know what’s going to happen next,” she said. “On Friday, after I’ve been riding him the whole week, he’s really fresh, and I can’t control him. But in the middle of the week he’ll be dead tired. He has a good jump and it feels really good in the air.”

Mea Gold Card is a very different kind of pony. “ ‘Janie’ is pretty easy,” said Lucie. “She’s a smooth ride and has a pretty good jump. The only thing is that she doesn’t like to put her ears forward, so sometimes in great pictures she’s jumping awesome, but her ears will be back. She’s great to ride and a lot of fun. All I have to do is sit back on her and hold her and make sure she doesn’t go too fast.”

Experience Pays Off For Mr. Flanagan
Sharn Wordley knows the value of a good horse, whether it’s 7 years old or 17, and 17-year-old Mr. Flanagan proved that age is no impediment to a strong performance with a win in the $25,000 Aiken Spring Classic Grand Prix.

“I’ve had him since he was 13,” said Wordley. “I buy a lot of my horses older, because you get better horses for less money. Often the horse doesn’t realize he’s depreciating.”

Last year Mr. Flanagan finished ninth in the U.S. Equestrian Federation National Grand Prix Standings with $89,900. “He’s fantastically consistent,” said Wordley. “Really fast, careful, super reliable—he’s a great horse.”

Wordley, Ocala, Fla., praised the course in Aiken. “Tony D’Ambrosio always builds a good course,” he said. “It was big enough, fast enough, and it was a very fast jump-off. It was a real galloping course.”

Wordley had the advantage of riding Mr. Flanagan last in the jump-off at Aiken, and he’d already put in a fast ride with his other mount, Epson Pierreville.

“I knew exactly what I had to do,” he said. “I was third on my other horse, which I went earlier on. He was pretty quick, and we led for awhile. Then Roberto Teran came out and beat me. I had a little bit faster gallop to the first fence. The flags were a long way away from the first jump and then I was a bit faster from fences 1 to 2. The rest was pretty much the same.”

Mr. Flanagan is Wordley’s oldest and most reliable horse. The Irish-bred gelding, by Cavalier, competed in some World Cup qualifying classes last year in California, but now Wordley is doing the smaller grand prix classes with him.

“I trail ride him to keep him really fit, and don’t let him eat too much,” said Wordley with a laugh as he explained their training regimen.

Wordley, who competes for New Zealand, plans to travel to Europe for a month this summer and aims to qualify to represent New Zealand at the 2008 Olympics.