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ELBERTA – There’s a new Animal Health Representative at Elberta Farmer’s Co-op, and the team is happy to welcome her to the family. Local horse-enthusiast and World Champion Barrel Racer Lacy Childress is now at the Elberta Co-op, a location that she claims is “right up her alley.”

Though from Baldwin County, Childress previously lived in Pensacola for four years. She and a fellow barrel racer have a business together, Indigo Medical Spa, located off North Davis Highway. Childress herself went to esthetician school, while her business partner is a massage therapist. The two knew each other through barrel racing, and when Childress was approached about using their combined skills to open a business, she accepted. About a year ago, Childress moved back to Baldwin to be closer to her family, deciding to drive to the spa for appointments. Her true passion, though, is horses.

“I came to the Elberta Co-op for feed and all my horse supplies,” said Childress. “It was because of my parents actually, I was going all the way to Robertsdale when I moved back, until my stepdad asked me why I didn’t just go to the Elberta Co-op. I’m like, where’s that, and turned out it was right down the road.”

During her year back in Baldwin County, Childress has become close to the employees of the Co-op, and when the new position became available, General Manager William Carlew approached her to see if she was interested.

“I was thinking, ‘You know, that actually sounds pretty cool, that’s right up my alley!’” said Childress.

Even though she still has appointments pre-booked through Indigo Medical Spa, the Co-op has offered to work out her schedule around them so that she can both begin her new job there as well as finish up the appointments she already had down. Once her pre-bookings are completed, Childress plans to dedicate more time at the Co-op and schedule her appointments around her work.

For those visiting the Elberta Co-op, Childress is a jack of all trades, learning everything she can at the store. She is the animal specialist, working with proper feeds for different animals, as well as supplies and items for all types of animals. She goes on farm calls, helps with ordering items, helps with inventory, and making sure the store receives the best hay to sell.

“I’m always learning, you can never learn enough,” Childress said. “As much as I know about horses, I go to several different clinics still, because you might not take everything from one specific clinic, but there might be one thing that you take from it. If you keep doing that, it builds over time … Everybody can share different information, it’s all about trial and error with horses, because they have a brain of their own, they do what they want, especially training them.”

And she knows a lot about horses. She began racing when she was five and remembers once riding her horse to the Silverhill Saddle Club when she was just seven years old and no one would take her to compete. Childress currently does not own any horses of her own, the last horse she owned being the one she won the World Championship with. She won the championship when she was 22 years old, when she was working with horses daily and riding them constantly.

“I went first in 2008 because I thought why not try the championship? My horse was doing good, and I came in 2nd place,” said Childress. “So then I knew I was going back, my horse really liked that arena, he loved it there, so I knew I was going to go back, and in 2009 I won.”

Originally, Childress planned to compete again in 2010, but life had other plans.

“In 2010, just two weeks before I was going back to the championship, that’s when I went to do a lesson and the horse flipped over,” said Childress. “I had an open comminuted fracture, I shattered my heel bone, they wanted to amputate my foot. I said no, so they shipped me from Fairhope to Mobile, and long story short, I didn’t get to compete.”

It took six months before Childress was able to walk again, and she has not been back to a World Championship since. After the accident, she states that she became nervous about riding again, and the incident took her nearly two years to recover from. But recover she did.

“Finally, last year I got my confidence back up, then got bucked off again and broke my wrist,” said Childress. “I wore a cast for four months, and I started thinking every time I got back going, something happened. So now I’m getting back going again, cycle three!”

Currently Childress boards four horses, all which are pre-trained and just need a rider. Even though she no longer competes much, she still runs horses, such as in a barrel race that took place in Pensacola during April.

“The people I board for, they want me to take their horses and video them, run them, showcase them, things like that,” said Childress.

She’s slowly getting back into competing once more as well, taking one of her boarders to a competition in Bay Minette recently, where she came in 4th place.

“The horse made a really good run, so I finally felt like, oh yeah, here we go again,” said Childress. “As soon as you get that little snippet of a win again, you’re ready to go. All it takes is that little push, and I’m good.”

The Elberta Farmer’s Co-op is located at 13320 Main St. in Elberta. You can give them a call at 251-986-8103 or visit their website at www.elbertacoop.com.