Raleigh, N.C. – Anna Stovall was willing to give everything off her back to help fellow competitor Lee Cross make it to the awards ceremony. Failure to appear could have cost Cross her first-place win in the FEI Young Rider Team Test at the Raleigh CDI-W/Y/J Capital Dressage Classic.

It all began when Cross didn’t hear her name in the list of finalist required to appear at the awards ceremony following Friday’s Young Rider Team competition. Hence, Cross, 19, of Concord, Mass. removed her most of her show clothes and headed back to the vendors area to return a pair of breeches. Once there, she checked the score board and learned that she had won the class.

“I finished my ride and they announced the line-up and I didn’t hear my number at all. So, I got completely undressed back at the stable and came back over here to return a pair of pants I had bought earlier in the day. I went to pick up my score and noticed it was a 66.815 and I thought that was pretty high so I asked where I had placed and was told I’d won the class. I freaked out. I was only in my shirt and breeches and my horse is back at the stable,” Cross said.

She immediately called her trainer of 10 years, Jane Hannigan, and said she needed her show clothes and her horse, the Swedish Warmblood Birkman (Chapman out of Birka). Hannigan told her she’d never be able to get back on time.

“I called her and said please get the horse down here. I need my hat. I need my jacket. They’re doing Prix St. Georges awards now and we still have time. And she said there was just no time and told me to talk to someone. I was going absolutely insane,” Cross said.

She went running to find an official who could help. What she found were her fellow competitors mounted, dressed and ready to ride into the main ring with their ribbons. Stovall, of Chesapeake, Virginia, had finished seventh with a score of 63.407 percent. She was there with her horse, the 14-year-old Trakhener gelding Ambitious (Mailo out of Audacity) only because Cross hadn’t shown up.

“I looked over and saw this woman holding the blue ribbon and everyone was there. But since I wasn’t there for first place, they had let the seventh place rider into the line-up so there were still six horses and moved everyone up.”

Cross relayed her story to officials in the area who looked over at Stovall and offered a suggestion. “They said go over to her and take her clothes and get on her horse. I said, “Are you kidding?”

Cross didn’t even have to ask. Stovall, having heard the suggestion, was already walking over to Cross peeling her clothes off along the way. She handed them over to Cross, along with her horse, giving Cross instructions on how to handle Ambitious as Cross redressed. “She was saying, ‘Just don’t push my horse in the walk, use a loose rein.’”

Now on Stovall’s horse and wearing her jacket, hat and boots, Cross now faced questions by some in the moment of confusion regarding whether or not she could enter the ring on someone else’s horse. Meanwhile, back at the barn, Hannigan was organizing a very fast turn-around and just as Cross began fearing she couldn’t enter the ring on a borrowed horse, Hannigan appeared with Birkman.

“She comes up with my horse and my stuff. I was already mounted on her horse. So I got off her horse, go over to my horse while taking off the other girl’s hat and jacket and am putting on my hat and my jacket and get on my horse and go into the ring,” Cross said.

But she didn’t have time to change boots and wore Stovall’s into the awards ceremony. Cross was so astounded at Stovall’s good sportsmanship that when asked how she felt about her win, she couldn’t even say. “I’m not even thinking about my win. I was really happy with the way I rode. I thought it was a great test and my trainer said it was too bad I didn’t get the placing and we were talking about what went right and what went wrong. It’s good that I won and I’m so happy but this whole thing with making it on my horse that it’s all I’ve thought about,” Cross said.

Meanwhile, Stovall had returned to the barns but Cross went hunting for her afterward, having learned the meaning of true sportsmanship. “It’s wonderful. She’s the best. I owe her hugs. I just can’t believe she would do that. I’ve never seen that kind of sportsmanship before. I think that was probably the highest level of sportsmanship I’ve ever seen. She never even hesitated, it was like, okay, here are my clothes and my horse. Don’t worry, just go. There was no hesitation on her part. That was remarkable,” said Cross, who when not riding is busy being an honor student at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.