CHRONICLE

To Barrel to the Top

Take a trial attorney, a partner with plenty of try, and some evidence of playing fast and loose, and you’ve got a case for a new champion.
BY KENDRA SANTOS

The barrel racing world was abuzz with world championship predictions before the 2000 National Finals Rodeo started. It was time to crown a new queen and— given the colorful credentials of the frontrunners —all agreed it would be an ultratight race.

When the rodeo world touched down in Las Vegas for the $4.5 million NFR, held Dec. 1-10, the top five contenders were naturally the talk of the town. That impressive list included regular-season leader and 10-time World Champion Barrel Racer Charmayne James; defending and two-time World Champion Sherry Cervi; longtime wolf Kelly Yates, who was armed with her Women’s Professional Rodeo Association/ American Quarter Horse Association 2000 Barrel Horse of the Year, Firewater Fiesta; fourtime World Champion Kristie Peterson; and 2000 WPRA Rookie of the Year Gloria Freeman.

The numbers were crunched a dozen different ways, and not once was Kappy Allen’s name mentioned. But when the curtain closed on the final performance, performance, dark horse Allen took center stage in the Thomas and Mack Center Arena to pick up her first gold buckle.“I didn’t have any idea when I got here that this is where I might end up,” gasped Allen, who turned 42 in November. “This was so unexpected that it hasn’t sunk in at all.”

The reason she didn’t expect the world of herself and her 9-year-old sorrel gelding, Risky Chris, whom she calls Chris for short, is because barrel racing is basically a hobby for Allen. She’s a civil trial attorney with a bustling practice in Austin, Texas. On top of that she’s a wife to husband Bob Roller and mother to two little boys, Kenny, 8, and Christopher, 4. To keep her balancing act from tipping, Allen only competed in about 40 of the 100 rodeos she was allowed in 2000. But she made every run count, especially when the spotlight fired up at the Finals.

“I really tried not to think about it,” Allen said of her strategy for handling the pressure throughout the title race. “I just took it one run at a time. I was confident in Chris. He was very relaxed, and I knew he wouldn’t hit a barrel if he could help it.”

Downed barrels were the demise of all but Peterson and her mount Bozo, who together won five NFR average titles in the ’90s and in 2000 finished second in the average race to Allen and Chris and third in the world. But with 140.01 seconds on 10 runs and checks in all but the last round, Allen set the house on fire. Her $95,112 week skyrocketed her from ninth in the pre-NFR standings to the top of the world. Her 2000 total of $145,204 was enough to edge James by about $3,000.

“It was a great field of horses here this year,” said Allen, who qualified for her first NFR in 1999. “It just keeps getting tougher. I’m thrilled with the way my horse worked. He was happy and healthy and comfortable all week. Ten runs is a lot. Everybody gets a little tired and sore. But my horse likes averages. That’s where he shines.”

Allen bought Chris three years ago out of North Carolina. He was a 40th birthday present to herself. His strongest trait in her eyes is his tough personality.

“He puts up with me,” she laughs. “My dad tells me he’s one in a million, because there’s not another horse on the planet that would put up with me. And he’s right—I nit-pick him to death.”

Allen was quick to credit her dad, Grady Allen, who’s one of only six left-handed calf ropers ever to qualify for the Finals. He roped at the second NFR ever held— in Dallas in 1960—and helped her in her travels up and down the rodeo road all year long in 2000.

“My dad helps me so much,” she said. “I really couldn’t have done it without him. He goes with me and drives, and does everything but ride my horse for me. I never have to worry whether there’s gas in the truck or if the stall is clean. I’m so glad it’s over—he hasn’t breathed in 10 days.”

Another ace in the hole for Allen was her friend Add Waddell, a professional barrel horse trainer, who rode Chris in the futurities and derbies before Allen bought him. “He watched my runs on television, and coached me through the NFR long distance,”

Allen said. Allen’s 2000 pre-NFR highlight was winning the average at the world-famous Calgary Stampede. It was a dream year with a fairy tale ending, and Allen doesn’t intend to change up her game plan in 2001.

“I’m not going to hit the road,” she said. “I’m going to try and hit the big rodeos again and see how it goes.”

But first, she’ll have to find her way back down to the ground from Cloud 9.

“There’s absolutely nothing like this rodeo,” Allen said. “It’s the best of the best—it’s 10 runs, and it’s showy and glitzy. I don’t know how to describe this, because I couldn’t have imagined it. Every girl that ever turns a barrel has a gold-buckle dream, but most of them know it will never happen. This is unbelievable.”
— AC

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