02/21/2026
One of my hero’s Tracy is AMAZING
Tracy Fenney was elected the National Equestrian of the Year in 2020 during the height of the pandemic. The timing of it was perfect for her, because “It was a good year for me to win, because I didn’t have to make a speech, or get dressed up.”
With no family interest in horses, Tracy nevertheless developed a passion for them. Her father was a real estate developer. Her mother, always open to an opportunity, noticed a beautiful property in Plano, Texas, where they lived, and left a note in the mailbox asking the owners if the property was for sale. When her parents went to look at it again, it turned out to be a riding/tennis/swimming club called Willow Bend. Tracy started taking riding lessons at the club.
She says, “Once you have horses in your blood, you’ll never get them out of there.” Right out of high school, she knew “This is what I want to do. There’s nothing like the feeling of jumping a horse.”
Her introduction to riding lessons fueled her passion. Tracy rode at the club for a few years until her trainer, Margot Foley, decided she needed a horse. They went to Mike McCormick’s place and began looking at a few horses. Margot liked one horse in particular, but Tracy’s parents said they couldn’t afford it. Tracy, disappointed, thought that they weren’t going to get a horse. But not too long after, her mom picked her up after school and said Mike had some new horses they could look at, ones that maybe they could afford. They headed over to his place to check them out.
Tracy had a surprise in store. The horse that she had tried and liked had a sign on its stall. It read, “Happy Birthday Tracy.” The horse was hers!
Tracy not only had a new horse but a new trainer as well. Margot had seen Tracy’s potential and knew she couldn’t take her as far as Mike could. At Mike’s barn, the riders showed and traveled. She suggested Tracy switch to his barn.
The birthday horse was an off-the-track Thoroughbred, That’s Entertainment (barn name “Ernie”), who Tracy won with right away. She quickly earned her way out of Limit Equitation, a division at the time for riders who had not yet won six blues. Placing out of Limit moved them up to Medal/Maclay and Junior Hunters.
Sadly, Ernie kept getting skinnier and skinnier and it turned out he had cancer. Tracy’s parents had no insurance on the horse, and couldn’t afford to keep buying horses for her. That was when Tracy started working for Mike. They would buy an inexpensive horse, bring it along, and then sell it. “We kept doing that little by little,” relates Tracy.
In Tracy’s last year of high school, her father bought her a horse from Butch Thomas, out in California. “He was not an easy horse,” she recalls, “He was pretty difficult. He wasn’t naughty, but strong. Coyote was my everything horse: hunter, equitation, jumpers. I went to Madison Square Garden and did the Maclay Finals on him. That was what you did; you had one horse that you did in every division.”
In high school, Tracy went to school “as little as possible. I’d go there in the morning and then in the afternoon I would work for Mike and then go to the shows on the weekends.”
When asked if Tracy had a preference for one ring or another she answered, “I think they equally complement one another, I think doing both is really good because each one of them makes you ride well in the other. If I had to pick I guess I would choose the jumpers because it’s more fair. You know where you stand, you either win or lose.”
đź“Ž Continue reading about Tracy Fenney at https://www.theplaidhorse.com/2022/05/24/tracy-fenney-horses-in-your-blood/
📸 courtesy of Tracy Fenney
