Penny Chenery

Penny Chenery was born in 1922 in New Rochelle, New York, and was raised in Pelham Manor, New York. The youngest of three children, she was named Helen Bates Chenery after her mother. Her father, Christopher Chenery, a Virginian, was driven by early poverty to become a millionaire, a goal he accomplished by 1928 by founding utility companies, first Federal Water Service, and then Southern Natural Gas Company. In 1936, he founded Meadow Stable, a thoroughbred racing and horse breeding operation at The Meadow in Caroline County, Virginia. Chenery had a love of horses from a young age, and learned to ride at age five. Believing her appreciation for horses was inherited from her father, Chenery stated, "My father really loved horses. I think a parent often communicates his love to a child." She shared many of her father's interests and goals, including business. She attended the Madeira School in McLean, Virginia, a prestigious girls' boarding school with an equestrian program. Chenery was captain of the Equestrian Team in her senior year. Following her graduation, she attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, majoring in American Studies. ==Career==

After graduating in 1943, Chenery worked as an assistant for Gibbs and Cox, a company that designed war craft for the Normandy invasion; subsequent to the invasion, she quit her job to join the Red Cross, at the urging of her brother. In 1945 she traveled to France as a Doughnut Girl to help war-weary soldiers transition to ships home at the end of World War II. After Secretariat, Chenery continued to breed and race horses under the Meadow silks with her greatest success coming in Saratoga Dew, who became the first New York-bred horse ever to win an Eclipse Award when the filly was voted the 1992 American Champion Three-Year-Old Filly. ==Accomplishments and accolades==

In 1983, Chenery, Martha F. Gerry, and Allaire du Pont became the first women to be admitted as members of The Jockey Club. From 1976 to 1984, Chenery served as president of the Thoroughbred Owners and Breeders Association. Also in 1976, she became a member of the Executive Committee of the American Horse Council, the horse industry trade association in Washington, DC. She also served as a member of the judges' panel of the Jockey Club, which bestows the Dogwood Dominion Award. In addition, she helped found the Thoroughbred Retirement Foundation, an organization dedicated to saving Thoroughbred horses no longer able to compete on the racetrack from possible neglect, abuse and slaughter. In 2003, the Arlington Park track established the annual "Penny Chenery Distinguished Woman in Racing Award". In 2006, the National Thoroughbred Racing Association honored her with the Eclipse Award of Merit for a lifetime of outstanding achievement in thoroughbred racing. In 2009, she was awarded the Smith College Medal for extraordinary professional achievement and outstanding service to her community. In 2018, The National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame named Ms. Chenery a Pillar of the Turf, the highest honor given to owners and breeders of Thoroughbreds. ==Personal life and death==

Chenery moved from Colorado to Long Island, New York, in 1949. She and John Tweedy divorced in 1974. In 1976, she married Lennart Ringquist, an executive in the motion pictures industry, divorcing in 1980. She moved to Lexington, Kentucky in the early 1990s and in 2005 moved to Boulder, Colorado to spend her final years near her children. Penny Chenery died on September 16, 2017, at her home in Boulder, Colorado from complications from a stroke. She was 95 years old. ==Depictions in media==

Chenery was portrayed by actress Diane Lane in the 2010 motion picture Secretariat, released on October 8, 2010. Chenery herself appeared in a cameo role in the film as a spectator at the Belmont Stakes. She was the subject of several books and articles as well as the 2013 documentary Penny and Red (Landlocked Films) made by filmmaker John Tweedy. ==References==