RIDING HIGH: She started riding horses at...

RIDING HIGH: She started riding horses at 3. Now 17-year-old Jaime Krupnick of Thousand Oaks has brought home one of riding’s most prestigious awards, the Rolex / United States Equestrian Team Show Jumping Award Gold Medal. . . . The medal goes to young riders who win 20 competitions. Only 37 riders have done that since the medal was created in 1967. Jaime, a senior at Westlake High School, says: “My goal is to continue riding through college and to qualify for the Summer Olympics of 2000.”

HIGH PROFILE: Deals cut. Executives promoted. Activities planned. Beginning today, the regular Ventura County Report column will be supplemented with more news on Ventura County business. . . . Today, a report on Ventura-based American Rocket Co.’s successful test firing of a hybrid engine set to power an experimental space vehicle in 1996. (Valley Business, Page 18).

HIGH HOPES: City officials will unveil today their newest plan to reinvigorate Oxnard’s struggling downtown. (B1) . . . Old-timers hope that the $1.6-million plan can make things better. But they also note two decades of merchant flight to the U.S. 101 corridor. . . . “I know it will never be the small town U.S.A. we had,” said Gloria Stuart, co-owner of BG’s Coffee Shop. “But we want something back. I’m always saying, ‘Come on, let’s get something done.’ I don’t want any more people to move.”

HIGH JINKS: Thousand Oaks City Council candidate Lance Winslow just couldn’t resist. . . . So he and a crew of high school supporters put up 20 plywood signs in orange and black. . . . Fashioned as arrows pointing at opponents’ posters, Winslow dubbed one rival the “Wicked Witch,” another a “warlock” and a third a “goblin.” Two older candidates were “ghosts.” . . . “It’s so funny, who could complain about it?” Winslow said, promising to pull the signs after Halloween.