Page 62 - Barrel Stallion Register 2023

Wife, Mom, Mentor, Trainer, Coach, Hauling Partner &Friend
by Diane Rice
TAMMY FISCHER’S MULTIFACETED CAREER
AS A BARREL RACER
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Anyone who knows seven-time National since she was 12 and has lived with Tammy’s Hayday and out of Sheza Peasa Pie, by Pie
Finals Rodeo qualifier Tammy Fischer knows that to her, barrel racing is way more than consistently running the fastest pattern. She also trains horses for her own and others’ use and coaches and mentors up-and-coming competitors. But her friends say that her most outstanding quality is that she’s always there for anyone in need.
“She’s always willing to help others even if she doesn’t know them,” says fellow competitor and longtime friend Sherry Cervi Petska, who has won
the NFR barrel racing four times. “If she sees someone needs help, she’s always willing to help them, no matter what it is.”
College rodeoer Victoria Procter, who has trained with Tammy
family for the past three years while attending Texas A&M, echoes Sherry’s sentiments. “The best way to describe Tammy Fischer is, other people come first,” she says. “A really good example of that is the NFR in 2018, where Tammy’s hauling partner at the time, Taci Bettis, ran the first three or four rounds and
kept hitting barrels. Tammy was four or five girls behind her in the lineup and Tammy literally, minutes before she was running on the biggest stage in the whole rodeo world, focused on Taci and helping Taci and her horse in the arena.
“Then, my freshman year, a week before my first college rodeo, Rabbit, my barrel horse, had a freak accident and before we could even put him down, Tammy was there with me,” Victoria continues. “We were crying together, and she offered me her good mare Ziva (LK Sheza Hayday, by PC Frenchmans
In The Sky), on whom she’d made the NFR, and she taught me how to ride her so I could still college rodeo. I could cry thinking about it because no other person I know would
ever just drop everything and give you their number-one horse out of the blue because you have nothing to ride.”
Those are just two examples of many,
many times Tammy has come to the rescue for someone in need, often at her own potential expense. “Tammy is my ‘mom,’ my boss, my coach, my friend and hauling partner,” Victoria says. “She’s just incredible and I probably wouldn’t be barrel racing today if she didn’t make me get back on a horse after Rabbit died.”
HER BEGINNINGS
Tammy, of Giddings, Texas, won her first barrel racing trophy at age two. She spent lots of time on the backside as the daughter of Quarter Horse race-training parents, Peggy and the late Jack Dube. “They trained in Texas, and we went to Ruidoso every year,” Tammy says. “We’d
60 SPEEDHORSE
“She’s always willing to help others even if she doesn’t know them. If she sees someone needs help, she’s always willing to help them, no matter what it is.” – Sherry Cervi Petska