Chenessa McGraw has been riding horses since she was just a toddler riding around on Rosy and then Sunny, the old gray mare of her mom’s. Although her mother, Cheressa Parke, didn’t want her to compete when she was young, Chenessa went to her first gymkhana when she was just three years old. These days, she making waves on the national scene and will soon have a chance to compete against well known (in the barrel racing world) names such as former world champion Brittany Pozzi Tonozzi.
Chenessa has always been a determined young lady. When she was just starting in gymkhana at the ripe old age of three, she told her parents that she didn’t need them to lead her through the pattern, ‘she had this.’ She did have ‘this,’ and worked her way through winning the saddle in the Tiny Tots, the Pee Week, and the Junior Division before deciding to move on to entering barrel racings around the area.
Her mom taxied her around to the many barrel races in the state. However after a while, the grey mare was not Chenessa where she wanted to be. After all, her childhood dream had been to run in the top 15 of the world at the National Finals Rodeo. (Her mom told her she was too young at the time.)
They found a horse for Chenessa right here in the valley after looking all around for one. Dawn Burnham Lindsey of Florence had a horse she had brought up from Mississippi. CityBoy had been patterned on the barrels but had not been in many competitions and was unseasoned.
“It wasn’t the greatest start,” said Parke. “They hated each other.”
Chenessa is one of those people who just have a natural connection with animals and horses in particular. Her mom said horses always liked her, but not CityBoy. He is a very high strung horse and it took a lot of time to get his mind back to working. The duo spent a lot of time riding outside the arena, up Coyote Creek or Calf Creek, to get the horse to relax and enjoy being a horse.
The pair went to a clinic put on in Great Falls by Charmayne James, an 11 time world champion who has won over $2 million during her barrel racing career. She retired in 2003 and now does clinics throughout the nation. When CityBoy and Chenessa came to the clinic, James saw the struggle the two were having, but she also saw the potential of the two.
“She (James) doesn’t very often ride one of the horses that people have in the clinic,” said Parke. “But she rode CityBoy and said he had potential.”
That convinced Chenessa to work even harder to keep CityBoy’s mind going in the right direction and keeping him strong and wanting to run.
“I learned that I have to be there every step of the way,” she said. “I have to help him and not be a jockey.”
While attending a race at Manhattan at the Copper Springs Ranch, they heard about the World Champion Rodeo Alliance. This was a relatively new organization that was created to expand rodeo events. They talked it over and decided to give it a go last year.
Parke had just purchased the Sapphire Event Center just north of Corvallis and renamed it the 5C Event Center. You would think this would be great for a barrel racer and her horse but not CityBoy. Apparently he doesn’t like this arena, even though it now has some of the best ground in the state in it.
The idea behind the WCRA was for each athlete to earn points no matter where they were competing. All they have to do is nominate the event and pay the fee. Points are earned when that contestant wins money. Points are weighted differently for each division and are scaled for go rounds, final rounds and aggregates. Points are awarded up to the top 10 money winners in that event. It’s kind of like a virtual barrel race on top of a regular race.
Chenessa had a good year last year and was slated to go to the finals in Guthrie, Oklahoma. This was after COVID hit and the event would be in August, in Oklahoma. Mom and daughter decided the travel and the heat would not be good for CityBoy and opted not to go to the finals.
But they kept competing. They went to the Days of 47 in Utah and had a good run. Then they went to the Running the Rims in Billings where the duo almost beat the arena record. They won the Montana Barrel Horse Association state championship.
The pair has consistently been in the top four of the leaderboard and even at the top of the board. With the finals just a few weeks away, they decided to go to Las Vegas, to the South Point arena, where the finals were scheduled to be held. They figured this would be a great opportunity to size up the arena and surroundings before the finals. Although they didn’t have the greatest run, because CityBoy didn’t like the ground, they still competed well.
They were back at the top of the leader board and just recently slipped to second place. The top four in barrel racing automatically qualify for the finals and will be directly seeded into the finals. Racers from 5-64 must qualify through a three round progressive format with six advancing to the finals.
However, COVID reared. It’s ugly head again. The finals were moved to Texas in November. But with Chenessa sitting at the No. 2 seed, she doesn’t have to qualify to get in through the first rounds. So they are making the long trip to Arlington for the finals.
The WCRA finals will be held in conjunction with the PBR championship. In addition to barrel racing, there will be breakaway roping, and team roping.
“This is history being made,” said Parke. “And Chenessa is going to be right there.”
Chenessa will begin her quest for the title on Thursday, November 12 at the Will Rogers Memorial Center in Fort Worth, TX. The barrel racing finals with the top six racers coming back will be held one Saturday, November er 14 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, TX.