“It’s been a long time since I jumped a course that big!” quipped Patty Stovel after winning the $75,000 Budweiser American Gold Cup.

Stovel has been out of the grand prix spotlight for several years, but she guided Shandor to the only clean round of 33 starters in the headline event of the American Gold Cup in Devon, Pa., Sept. 15-18. And with his performance, Shandor has Stovel thinking about international glory again.

Ten years ago, Stovel was riding high after finishing as the top American at the 1994 World Championships at The Hague (the Netherlands) on Mont Cenis. She and Mont Cenis had a fairytale partnership for nine years, but in 1998 divorce meant she had to sell him. Canadian rider Ian Millar bought Mont Cenis, and competed him until 2001. But Mont Cenis, now 21, is back in her family.

In the meantime, Stovel made a name for herself in the hunter ring, riding Frascati to regular working hunter horse of the year titles in 1999 and 2000, and winning many International Hunter Futurity titles.

But she’s hoping that Shandor, a 10-year-old, Hanoverian gelding by Sandro, is her ticket back to the big leagues. “He’s not ever going to be that speedy, but I think he has Olympic scope, and I think he’s that kind of horse,” Stovel said.

That scope is what convinced her to give him a try two years ago. “He’d had a very difficult start. He had a tremendous amount of jump, but he was very difficult to ride. He would jump one jump and then run off with you to the end of the ring,” she said. She rode him for his owners for six months, but they wanted to sell.

“Ian Millar tried him one day at Culpeper, [Va.] and watching him jump, I was just awed. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to put a syndicate together to buy him.’ So, I got on the phone and got it done,” Stovel said. The syndicate includes Stovel’s ex-husband, amateur rider Karen Murphy, and two others.

She worked with Shandor throughout 2004, earning ribbons at smaller grand prix events. He then had the fall off, and she brought him back for the Florida circuit. “I realized that maybe that many months off wasn’t such a good thing for him. He was wild. It took about April to get him tame again,” she said.

The key was a new bit–a hackamore. “As soon as I took the bit out of his mouth, he was a totally different horse. He was always fussy and difficult with his mouth, and now he rides beautifully around the ring.”

Shandor seemed to just lope over Steve Stephens’ Gold Cup course. But it wasn’t until Stovel went, as 31st in the order, that the scoreboard read 0 faults.

“It was a rider’s course. When I walked it, I thought it was tough but fair. It had a little bit of everything, and you had to think the whole way around,” said Margie Engle, who finished third on Hidden Creek’s Perin with a quick four-fault trip.

While rails fell almost everywhere on course, the penultimate combination–12AB–was a heartbreaker for many. Stephens set two tall verticals–5’1″ and 5’4″–a tight two strides apart, along the rail of the ring. And the fence before was a wide triple bar.

“It rode very tight, and leading up to it, there were a lot of lines off the forward stride. And then, coming after the triple bar, which was quite wide, your horse was a bit flat from stretching out in that effort. And they were tall verticals!” said Engle, who’s only fault was at 12B.

Alison Firestone claimed second, with the fastest four-fault round aboard Intrepide du Valon. She’s had the ride on the chestnut mare since December and won the $30,000 WEF Challenge Cup Final (Fla.) CSI-W on her in April.

“She’s a very careful horse. If I do a big class with her, I drop her down and do some smaller things,” Firestone said. “I decided that I was really going to aim at the World Cup classes with her, so I’m thrilled with her.”

Firestone is also thrilled with her new engagement. Fiancé ndrew Robitaille popped the question on Sept. 5, and they’re planning a May 2006 wedding in Costa Rica. A former junior and amateur rider, Robitaille is now a photographer specializing in custom portrait albums for riders.

Tromp Triumphs In The Classic

Grand prix aspirations glitter in the eyes of David Tromp, and he’s well on his way after a win in the Show Jumping Hall of Fame high junior/amateur-owner jumper classic at the Gold Cup. Tromp’s clean jump-off, in 35.96 seconds, just barely nipped second-placed Paige Johnson, who stopped the timers in 36.05 seconds.

“When I saw Paige go, I wasn’t sure–she was coming pretty close!” Tromp said. “On the rollback to one vertical, I got one more stride in than I wanted to. I came out of the ring knowing I could be beaten, but I got lucky.”

Tromp rode Corina, an 8-year-old, Dutch Warmblood mare, to the win. He bought Corina in March, importing her from Louie Joppen in the Netherlands. “I liked her fight. She has quite an attitude, but she works with you. Well, most of the time!” he said. Tromp has been riding with Leslie Howard since May, and “she’s helped me tremendously with getting along with the feisty horses, helping to make them feel like everything’s their idea instead of forcing them to do things.”

Tromp, 19, moved up to the high division a year ago. He’s been riding since he was 7, and rode with Jeffery Welles until last year. “He brought me up from the puddle jumpers to the high junior ring,” Tromp said.

A sophomore at Cornell University (N.Y.), Tromp is majoring in animal science. “I really like farming. I love horses and other animals. At the farm at home [in North Salem, (N.Y.)], we have goats and chickens. Horses are what I’m really serious about, but I like having fun with the other animals as well,” he said.

Riding and showing is a family affair for the Tromps. David’s younger brother, Mattias, shows in the pony jumpers, while his older sister, Emmy, competes in the low amateur-owner jumpers and won a class at the Gold Cup. Their mother, Henny, got them inter-ested. “She used to ride and show, but she gave up her riding to help push us forward, which was wonderful for us,” Tromp said.

Moving On Up

Showing is also a family affair for Reisa Lakin. Before now, her only appearances at the Devon showgrounds had been to watch her sister, Nicole, show. But at the Gold Cup, the roles reversed, and Nicole was there to cheer Reisa and Cloud Nine to victory in the adult amateur jumper championship class.

“I wasn’t expecting to win at all,” said Reisa. “I just wanted to not fall off! I was going to have fun, not to win, really.”

It was just her second show on Cloud Nine, whom she bought in late August.

Cloud Nine, a former grand prix mount for Beezie Madden and a winner in the junior jumpers with Sloane Coles, is showing Reisa the ropes. “He’s definitely a been-there, done-that horse. But he’s unlike any horse I’ve ever ridden. He loves to jump. He has a lot of energy, and he knows when it’s show time. He perks up when he goes in the ring, and that gets me excited,” she said.

Reisa, of Reading, Pa., is a junior at the University of Delaware, majoring in communications. She’s been showing lightly in the children’s and adult amateur jumpers for the past three years. When she began riding with Frank and Stacia Madden in August, they put her and Cloud Nine together.

Lakin, 19, will ride and show as much as her school schedule allows, and she plans to show at the Winter Equestrian Festival (Fla.) for the first time this winter. “I’d love to move up [to the amateur-owner division], but I’m not in any rush. I know I have a horse who can do it, and that’s really reassuring. The more I ride him, the more fun I have,” she said.

Shannon McGrath is in the process of moving up herself. She debuted in the junior jumper ranks last month, but returned to the children’s classes for her first Gold Cup appearance. And she ended up first and third in the children’s jumper championship class.

McGrath took the blue ribbon aboard the veteran Tipitina, and they also claimed the children’s jumper division championship. Third place went to a new mount, Sweet Emotions. McGrath had set the leading time aboard Tipitina, and she made a bid to overtake herself on Sweet Emotions. “I just got him a few weeks ago, so I was giving it a shot. But Tipitina’s very fast, so I wasn’t sure I could do it,” she said.

McGrath, 14, bought Tipitina two years ago from Peter Leone. The 10-year-old, Belgian Warmblood mare was showing in the low amateur-owner division, and she and McGrath soon made a name for themselves in the children’s classes. They earned championships at numerous shows and then ended 2004 with a win in the Marshall & Sterling Finals (Mass.).

“She wants to win. She has so much heart for it,” McGrath said. “Right now I’m trying to make the transition [to the juniors], and it’s really fun to do her in the children’s. It’s good for my confidence.”

McGrath, of North Caldwell, N.J., is also an accomplished singer. She’s been performing since she was 5 and sings with audition groups.