The Roanoke Times

File 2008 Tracy Fenney rides S&L Willie in a jumpoff to win the $50,000 Grand Prix of Roanoke at the 2008 Roanoke Valley Horse Show.

She has a horse for all occasions.

It only makes sense for Tracy Fenney. If she and her husband and trainer Mike McCormick are going to travel all the way from Flower Mound, Texas, to the Roanoke Valley Horse Show, no sense in showing up lacking horsepower.

That's part of the reason Fenney, the defending champion in tonight's $50,000 Grand Prix of Roanoke, and McCormick will ride five horses between them when the Marion Bradley Via Memorial trophy will be contested starting at about 8:30 p.m.

The class is the traditional grand finale of this show, which is celebrating its 38th anniversary. The show is a collaboration of a number of volunteer individuals and sponsors including the City of Salem.

All profits from this, one of the last all-breed shows on the circuit, are donated to charity.

Leading up to the Prix will be a variety of championships contested in the Hackney Pony, Fine Harness, Saddle Seat Equitation, Park Horse, and Roadster. Amateur and professional classes in Three-Gaited and Five-Gaited classes will also be settled.

The $5,000 Five-Gaited and the $3,500 Three-Gaited classes are the two richest saddle horse classes.

It can be a tense wait for the jumpers, who show last. If Fenney has any anxiety, she's not showing it.

"They're all different," she said of the quintet of jumpers. "I'm very lucky because I kind of have one of everything. One tends to rise to the occasion every week for me."

Fenney rode Tenfold to the blue ribbon in the $7,500 Welcome Jumper stake Tuesday. McCormick smoked the field in the $5,000 Open Jumper Speed class atop thoroughbred MTM Remington Wednesday, and Fenney was leading the victory parade after Thursday's $7,500 Jumper State, this time in MTM Centano's saddle.

That doesn't count the seventh-place finish she rode MTM Timon to Thursday despite a nasty slip on the damp and loose riding surface on the Salem Civic Center floor. Timon, an inexperienced competition mount, was very fast.

Fenney has even more firepower at her disposal with S&L Willie, who was scheduled to join Centano, Timon, Tenfold and Remington in tonight's class. S&L Willie is last year's Prix champion.

S&L Willie is coming off surgery two months ago to remove bone spurs from his right front ankle.

"So I'm kind of getting back in gear with him," Fenney said. "It was pretty major surgery, so we're just getting back going."

Willie did not place in the Thursday night class.

"He was a little rusty," Fenney said.

Fenney and McCormick were thinking about scratching one of the five but had made no decision Friday night.

In addition to Fenney, two other past champions will compete. Aaron Vale and Mary Lisa Leffler each have a horse entered.

Leffler won the 2006 Prix with Gerona 92, the same horse she rode for third place in Thursday night's class. That mare will serve her again tonight.

"We're just now getting back into the indoor ring a little bit," she said. "We're just back from Upperville [Colt and Horse Show] and the big grass field and she's getting her step in from being out there. She's used to this. She's won here before and we ride in a small indoor ring at home, so I know that feel."

That has to help. Allen Wade has designed some challenging courses this week.

"I'm sure Saturday night it will be a little bigger, a little more technical," Leffler said. "I'm sure we'll have some tighter options and everything."

Vale was second on Tarco Thursday night and will have the same Belgian Warmblood entered tonight. He also had a late entry with Wilkie Van't, a 10-year-old chestnut mare, also a Warmblood.

"I think we've won four Grand Prix this year, most of them outdoors in big fields," he said. "Those were under different conditions than we have here."

Tarco is a large, explosive horse, not the best type for such a small space as the civic center, in Vale's opinion. Still, he was encouraged by his results in the tune-up.

Vale has won for a record nine times here but not since 2005 with My Fair Lady.

Others in tonight's Prix are two other horses that placed in the Thursday class. Little John and Eliza Shuford were fifth and Big Air, Harold Chopping in the irons, was eighth.

Others who also showed Thursday were Trillion and Mary Elizabeth Moore; Aragon and Mathias Hollberg; Pronkjuwail D and Thaisa Erwin; and James T. Kirk and horseman Angel Karolyi.

"He's a really good horse and I think he has a chance, a possibility, to win," Karolyi said. "He's new at the Grand Prix level this year, but he's doing very well and I'm excited about him."

Fenney takes nothing for granted.

"Any day, any horse can win," she said. "You have to prove yourself again every week, every class, actually."