McCartney grew up in Louisiana, where roping ran in the family—her dad roped, and it was simply what the Guillorys did—but nobody had carried it to a WPRA world standings run before her. Carl’s goals for his daughter were plain: graduate college and make it as a roper. She did both. She played collegiate softball and started at Louisiana College before finishing a general studies degree at Texas A&M in May 2021. The same year she qualified for her first Wrangler NFBR.
As her career built, she leaned on two names any roper would recognize—ProRodeo Hall of Famers Joe Beaver and Fred Whitfield, both of whom she counts among her mentors.
Her horsepower has carried the load in this run to No. 1. McCartney rode her mare, registered Aladdins Approach and known around the barn as “Lexus,” through all five of her runs at Calgary—the same “old faithful” mare she leaned on in May, when a sweep at the Corpus Christi Rodeo carried her from No. 28 to No. 11 in the standings in a single week.
“I think it really came down to horsepower for the setup and how it was,” McCartney said of Calgary. “I’m just really fortunate my horse worked really good and gave me great chances. I really couldn’t fault her on any run that I made.”
Lexus finished second in the Nutrena Horse of the Year voting in 2025—proof of a mare that keeps showing up for McCartney at the moments she needs her most.
Storybook Ending: Cheyanne McCartney Wins $69,500 at Calgary, Moves to Projected No. 1 in the World
Breakaway is a solo event, but McCartney doesn’t run the operation alone. She married Cody, a roper in his own right, in October 2023, and the two have built as much of a partnership around the horses as around the marriage. Their gelding CR Tuff King, known as “Teddy,” has become a two-event standout—cashing checks in both the breakaway and the tie-down, for the McCartneys and for other riders who’ve climbed aboard him. Cody started the horse, sold him as a young prospect, then bought him back at the start of his 5-year-old year.
“He kind of stays the same—what you see is what you get,” McCartney said of Teddy.
The couple splits its summer between the WPRA rodeo trail and the futurity circuit, where McCartney has become one of the sport’s most dangerous forces. She banked $68,566 at the Gold Buckle Futurity in Ardmore in May, then swept both breakaway divisions at Old West’s Heber City Futurity in July—riding Thiccthirty to the 4-&-Under win and Hez Talkin Smack to the 6-&-Under title. Days later, Hez Talkin Smack turned around and carried Cody to a split win of his own at the Pleasant Grove Rodeo.
“I hadn’t really had the winter that I was wanting to have, so I was playing catch up a little bit and just trying to put checks together,” McCartney said of her early-season push. “There’s a lot of rodeos left, a lot of money left to be won—so anytime you can capitalize and string some checks together, we try to take advantage of that.”
With a full summer of rodeo still ahead and a run at the National Finals now squarely in view, McCartney is trying not to look too far past whatever’s next. “I’m pretty much usually just focused on one rodeo at a time,” she said. “But it’s definitely a career win for me thus far.”
Then, the line she keeps coming back to—the one that says more about where she’s headed than any number in the standings could: “I’m just thankful that I’m getting to live it.”
