Westchester's Winter Wonderland at Kensico Dam Plaza in Valhalla opened for the season Friday night.

During the summer, the plaza hosts fireworks and festivals, but during the past four winters, it's played host to a candy-cane forest and other seasonal attractions.

Westchester County Parks Department Commissioner Kathy O'Connor says this year there's a new ride, the Winter Wonderland Slide and, for the first time, a county-owned circus tent.

There's also new food, including a Cinnabon truck. 

And there are ponies, as 4-year-old Sophia Pinto learned.

The girl, whose mother says she was born with the equivalent of half a heart, recently underwent her third open-heart surgery in the care of doctors at Maria Fareri Children's Hospital. Friday, she was well enough to go on her first-ever pony ride.

Admission costs $15 a person, and children under 3 enter free. Winter Wonderland runs until New Year's Eve.