“The Legend” Guy Allen Honored with Ty Murray Top Hand Award
By: Darci Miller
LAS VEGAS – According to nine-time World Champion Ty Murray, when you’re given the nickname “the Legend” before you’ve even retired, you know it’s the truth.
Such was the case for steer roper Guy Allen, nicknamed “the Legend” as he won an eventual 18 world titles.
Allen was on hand Tuesday night at the 2021 Heroes & Legends Celebration in Las Vegas to receive the 2021 PBR Ty Murray Top Hand Award by its namesake. The award is given annually to individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to enhance the sport of rodeo and is based on traditional American values and fundamental ideals such as courage, pride, respect, and hard work.
Few cowboys better fit this description than Allen.
“I’m very humbled to have this award,” Allen said. “I didn’t do anything but rope steers.”
Allen won his PRCA-record 17th world title in 2003 after previously winning 11 consecutive titles from 1991-2001. He went on to win one more championship in 2004, and he then missed out on No. 19 in 2005 by a mere $1.67.
Allen qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 33 times, won 47 rounds, and won the NFR event title five times. In 2000, he set the world record for fastest steer roping time at 7.9 seconds, later broken in 2012.
Allen holds the record for most championships in a single event at 18, as well as the most steer roping titles. He also holds the most consecutive steer roping titles at 11.
“When he called me earlier, Cody (Lambert) said I was awarded this award; he promised me that I wouldn’t have to get on a bull,” Allen joked.
Allen wanted to be a bull rider growing up, but that dream was dashed when he had the opportunity to get on a few – admittedly very large – calves as a child.
“I think it was Bodacious,” said to raucous laughter in the Grand Ballroom of the South Point Hotel Casino & Spa. “I rode him a couple of jumps, threw my hands up, and fell off. They brought another one in there that weighed about 195. It was a little bigger. I got on him, two jumps, threw my hands up. That calf tried to stay under me, and I still fell off of him.
“So my mom, she was videoing it, and I got in front of the chutes back there and was crying. And they videoed it. So now when we go home for the holidays or something, they show that. Me behind the chutes, crying.”
The legends: they’re just like us.
Allen appreciates joining the ranks of an elite class of athletes who have won this award, including Phil Lyne, Larry Mahan, Trevor Brazile, Lewis Feild and Tom Ferguson.
But most of all, he knows his daughters appreciate it more for its namesake than anything else.
For a time, they wanted nothing more than to get Ty Murray’s autograph.
“Every time we’d go to a rodeo, they said, ‘Is Ty Murray going to be there? Is Ty there?’” Allen said. “Got behind the chutes in Pecos, and Ty, he signed my daughter’s hat. We keep going on. ‘Is Ty Murray going to be there?’ So we got to the winners’ banquet, and was giving our speeches there, and got done and were taking pictures. We come out, and she wanted to get autographs. Well, she got everybody’s but mine, but I think she got Ty’s twice.
“It’s a very humbling honor to accept the Ty Murray Top Hand Award.”
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