The Mariles Kids

At the Pennsylvania National Horse Show in Harrisburg, West Germany's fine jumping team was having things its own way last week. With only two competitors still to jump in the fault and out event, Germany's Olympic Champion Hans Winkler, 32, had cleared the ten jumps faultlessly in 38.6 seconds. Then a slim young Mexican girl galloped to the starting line, her dark hair bobbing out from under her black riding cap in a pert ponytail. Vicki Mariles swept her horse over the rail jump, safely navigated the spread jump, and swept past the finish line in an amazing 36.9 seconds to beat Winkler and win her first international trophy.

At 16, Vicki Mariles is two years under the official minimum age for international competition, was competing only by courtesy of a special dispensation from the Federation Equestre Internationale. But Mariles is no ordinary name in international horsemanship. Her father, Brigadier General Humberto Mariles, 45, is one of the world's great horsemen, helped make Mexico a power in the equestrian world. For long, toilsome hours Vicki and her older brother Humberto Jr., now 18, worked under their father's exacting eye to master Mariles' jumping style, in which the rider stays firmly in the saddle at the take-off point instead of lifting up to urge his mount over the barrier.

"Vicki," says Papa Mariles, "she has a very strong character and lots of courage. Berto, he is more quiet, his trouble is he don't turn the corners too well. Vicki, she turns those corners very well. She knows that is how you save time, but she still has to learn one important thing. You see, when a horse is racing fast, he flattens out across the jump. When he comes down, you have to encourage him a little--go 'Hah! Hah! Hah!' in his ear to help him go over the next jump. She don't do that yet."

The general obviously seeks perfection. But at show's end, Vicki and Berto tied for sixth in the individual rankings, a highly creditable performance in competition against the world's best horsemen. Father Mariles had obviously produced a pair of successors Mexico could be proud of.

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