The Strength of Confidence

Helping Youth Gain Strength with the Help of Horses

St. Louis native Lucille Fancey’s love for horseback riding became clear at an early age. She jumped at any opportunity to ride a horse, joining the riding club in high school and eventually owning her first horse with her husband at her west Texas ranch.

After moving to Oklahoma in 1960, she began teaching English hunter jumper lessons using a cross-country course that sprawled across her Edmond property. For more than 50 years, she taught proper form and riding technique, sharing her passion for riding with three generations of students.

When one of her young riders was left paralyzed from the waist down in an automobile accident, Lucille helped him work through his disability, teaching him how to ride a horse on his own again. Through the experience, Lucille discovered a new passion in life. In 1977, Lucille, alongside her daughter, Joy Fancey-Milligan, founded the Coffee Creek Riding Center to provide equine therapy for youth with disabilities.

Today, more than 140 volunteers at the Coffee Creek Riding Center help 250 central Oklahoma youth a year improve in strength, coordination, balance and self-image. Most of the youth receiving equine therapy at the Center are age 3 to 11.

“The kids view the therapy as recreational,” said Joy, director of Coffee Creek Riding Center. “While they are having fun, the horse is helping the kids recapture their balance by working their central core.”

Lucille died in March 2020, but thanks to Joy’s leadership and the Coffee Creek Riding Center Fund Lucille established at the Oklahoma City Community Foundation in 1994, the Center stays accessible and free of charge to families in need of its services.

Coffee Creek Riding Center uses equine therapy to help 250 youth each year improve in strength, coordination, balance and self-image.