There’s a blue ribbon Rita Timpanaro holds especially dear to her heart, one from the glory days of the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
It was 1962, and Timpanaro was just 12. She was headed to the National at the Garden with her only horse, Nibbles, to compete in the junior hunter division and she’d also qualified for both the ASPCA Maclay and AHSA Medal finals. “It was just so exciting,” Timpanaro said. “I loved to watch at the National, so to be able to show there was so much fun.”
Rita Timaprano showing Nibbles in the 1962 ASPCA Maclay Finals at the National Horse Show at Madison Square Garden.
She remembers as they got ready for their first trip to the Garden, a barnmate asked if she was going to give Nibbles a more sophisticated name for the occasion. “He got his name, Nibbles, because he’d nibble on everything,” she said. “One of the other people at the barn said, ‘You can’t go to Madison Square Garden and call him Nibbles!’ But I said, ‘That’s his name!’ And we went with it.”
She and Nibbles walked into the first class of the junior hunter division and won right off the bat. “I think that’s my favorite ribbon I’ve won,” she said. She remembers that in the Maclay and Medal finals, which in those days were both held at the National the same weekend, she had good trips, but didn’t place.
But the next year, 1963, she and Nibbles were back. “The following year, when I was 13, I was second in the Maclay Finals and fourth in the Medal Finals,” she said. “It really took me until about 20 years ago to realize that that was quite an accomplishment. When I was young, I just looked back and thought, ‘That was nice to do.’ But I never really thought of it as anything remarkable.”
But it was truly remarkable for such a young rider with her one and only horse. Timpanaro, who lived on Long Island, had bought Nibbles when she was just 9 and he was a green 4-year-old. “My dad just found him for $500. My dad didn’t know too much about horses, but he found him as a 4-year-old. I was a real beginner rider; I knew how to trot. We learned together,” she said. “I went to some really top trainers, Wayne and Frank Carroll and they made Nibbles into a really good horse.”
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Nibbles lived with the Carrolls at their Secor Farm in White Plains, N.Y., and Timpanaro’s mother would drive her the 1½ hour after school and on the weekends to ride and for lessons. Her parents were of modest means, so Timpanaro had just Nibbles, not a string of horses, and she didn’t show often. “My parents supported it 100 percent. They saved money so I could ride and show and take lessons,” she said.
But Nibbles turned out to be all she needed. “He just had a great heart. He loved to jump, and he always wanted to do it right. We never knew his breeding, but he was great,” Timpanaro said. She continued to ride and show him after their early successes, and Nibbles stayed with Timpanaro through his retirement until she lost him at age 19.
Timpanaro ended up winning the AHSA Medal Final in 1966 at the age of 16 riding another horse, and she went on to a successful career as a professional rider and trainer and R-rated judge. She’s also added equine appraising to her skill set.
As she looks back Timpanaro acknowledges that it all started with Nibbles. “I had a true love for that horse, and I would not have gone as far as I did were it not for him,” she said.
“I owe much of my success to my parents, countless lessons on Nibbles and school horses with Frank and Wayne Carroll, and the one and only Nibbles,” Timparano said. “As a junior rider, most weekends were spent taking lessons. So when we went to a show it was something very special.”
Wondering about Timpanaro’s flashy plaid jacket in the photo, which was taken at the 1963 ASPCA Maclay Final? “My mom picked that jacket out and decided it was what I should wear,” she said. “That’s what people wore back then. That was the Maclay, and for the hunter classes, I wore a black jacket with red plaid lining.”
