An Executive and an Equestrian: Introducing Tracey Erway
We are happy to introduce Ms. Tracey Erway as President-Elect of USA Working Equitation, whose term as President will begin December 1, 2024. Tracey has ridden and trained horses for most of her life and brings that lifelong passion to USAWE. Tracey is from Pittsburgh, PA but lives in Portland, Oregon, owns a farm with six horses, sheep and a llama. Her horses include a rescued Mustang, three retired dressage show horses (2 are rescues), a working equitation Quarter Horse, and a one-year-old Dutch Warmblood.
Her journey with horses began when she was a child riding her neighbors’ ponies. Then Tracey’s parents bought Snuffy the pony and she joined the USA Pony Club. “We’d ride seven miles to get a riding lesson,” she says, “but most of my riding was crazy kid-trail-riding through the strip mines and woods, swimming them in the pond, and I even took my horse to football games at the High School as the mascot. As Pony Clubbers, we were invited to fox hunt so every Sunday in the winter we traveled to West Virginia to join the hunt. I was hooked and eventually even went foxhunting in Ireland. Not for the faint of heart. In Pony Club I trained in dressage and eventing, and knew eventing was it for me.”, Tracey explains.
Her ah ha moment came when she was schooling preliminary and flipped over a vertical at the top of a Normandy bank. Her dressage instructor said, “Tracey, you’re trying to jump a dressage horse. Either switch sports or get a different horse.” Tracey explains: “Well, anyone who knows me knows I can’t let a horse go so I switched to dressage with my heart horse Trakehner, Echo. We competed through Prix St Georges. He lived to be 32.”
So began her career in dressage which would lead to her current passion, working equitation. “Working equitation emphasizes a real-life practical partnership between horse and rider.”
Tracey learned about Working Equitation by accident. “I volunteered to scribe for a working equitation dressage trial and came back the next day to watch the EOH and Speed rounds. There was way more hooting and hollering and whistling and carrying on than you’d ever see in regular dressage! These people were having fun!”
As a computer geek she loves logical progressions, and that’s how she sees dressage: “A logical progression of body building, communication and learning – for both horse and rider. Dressage with obstacles is a true test of good dressage. Watching my first cattle trial and seeing dressage in action with cows: Side passes, turns on the haunches and the forehand, pirouettes and flying changes–it suddenly all made sense to me. It allowed me to combine my love of dressage with some real-world objectives.”
It was a natural next step to become a USAWE judge and Technical Delegate. Tracey already had her USDF L and had been judging dressage for years. “Judging gives me a sense of community; I meet so many people and I love training and building my knowledge. It’s an honor to work with and learn from the other USAWE judges and the programs our Licensing Committee offers. They are a diverse, highly educated, supportive, and committed team. Fun too,” Tracey says.
Tracey’s professional career began in software engineering, eventually landing her at Intel as a Senior Marketing and Engineering Executive. In her roles at Intel, she led strategic initiatives and groundbreaking work, trailblazing the art and science of open source hardware and software. Tracey led Intel’s contribution to a non-profit open source program where she gained experience in planning, engineering management, marketing, communications, while representing Intel on two non-profit boards, one as President.
Tracey’s career has taught her the value of strategy and planning. As incoming USAWE President, she’ll be blazing a trail to lead the creation and implementation of USAWE’s first ever five-year strategic plan. She wants to “create processes that help the organizational leadership to think and plan strategically, grow our membership, and grow the value to our members.”
“I question everything because everything can be improved. It’s just a matter of deciding what is most important,” Tracey says. She adds that “The challenges of growing the organization nationally and developing key partnerships with other equine disciplines will take patience and care. I’m convinced that the value working equitation offers can benefit other equine organizations throughout the U.S. That said, change takes time and the participation of talented people. This excites me.”
Tracey’s combination of equine and executive leadership experience is unique. And she offers the following insight into how each horsemanship and leadership overlap.
Good horsemanship. “I never really understood the seemingly overused term ‘horsemanship’ until I had an epiphany at a groundwork clinic. It takes a lot of training and good timing to be decent at groundwork. I am proficient at horsemanship when I control my language, my tension, my intent and my actions to always be fair to my horse, resulting in a mutual trusting relationship. I think ‘good horsemanship’ is about ‘doing the right thing’ for your horse at any time; you only do the wrong thing by accident, you learn what is fair, what trust feels like, and your highest priority should be to be fair in your training.”
Good leadership. “I realized I could apply these learnings in the rest of my life as well. These same principles apply to the people you work with; the people you love. I learned that my horse should never be surprised at being told something isn’t right, nor offended; that I need to help him understand what is expected of him. He should always be able to trust me and know that whatever I ask will never be too much. By trusting me he can be successful. I learned to never raise my voice. My voice isn’t a training tool, it only creates tension.”
Something you might not know about Tracey is that she has been dealing with a broken ankle and leg. “That has changed me because there is so much that I can’t participate in. I live and work to ride so it’s devastating to be unable to train and school my six horses, or to be at all athletic. If I were still riding regularly, I am not sure I’d have time for this position,” she says.
Tracey Wants YOU to Speak Up!
I want our members to be vocal and to fill my email with their thoughts (president-elect@usawe.org), good or bad, and to feel comfortable calling me. Tell me what works and what doesn’t work. I take the issues members and show managers mention to me at shows and bring them to the Board of Directors for discussion and action.
Let me know if you have a talent or skillset to offer that could be beneficial to the organization and other members. Come work with me. An organization is only as good as its membership, and only worthwhile if it serves its membership. I want to make sure we do that. I want to make sure I do that.
2025 Focus as Incoming President of USAWE
From an organizational growth perspective, let’s put Working Equitation on the map in the U.S. as an accessible, affordable, welcoming, and fun sport. This is a sport that can be a rider’s primary sport but should appeal to riders from other disciplines who can participate in WE as an excellent cross-training opportunity.
I want to grow USAWE in geographical areas where it doesn’t exist and continue to create partnerships with other related organizations just as we are doing now with our youth programs.
From a membership value perspective, I’m very interested in increasing the educational opportunities for all members, and we’re just kicking off an educational task force. Members should feel excited about competing and being part of USAWE, and to feel empowered to help drive changes that make this sport their own. With ongoing education, we can help riders move up the levels.
Education is also key to having our first competitive team ready for the Working Equitation World Championships in 2026 in Spain. Younger members will be able to see US riders at the highest level of competition which will help them see a future in this sport.
Finally, from a business perspective, I want to use my experience to put known processes into practice so that future leaders of this organization can envision new futures and will have the “how to do it” baked into our organizational structures, including the board, committees, policies and procedures. It is also important to become an asset to the World Association of Working Equitation (WAWE). The US has a tremendous amount to offer.