The Lady Looper
Lari Dee Guy has been roping all her life, earning 11 American Junior Rodeo Association world championships beginning at age 9. After years of honing her craft, she’s amassed numerous Women’s Professional Rodeo Association World Championships and scores of other awards. Today, she’s still competitive, but she’s also committed to mentoring and guiding young women in the roping arena.
Born-and-raised on her family’s ranch in Abilene, Texas, Guy and her brother grew up with her grandpa, T.C. Guy, and her dad, Larry Guy, mentoring her. The left-handed kid had to learn to rope right-handed.
“We learned to rope as soon as we could walk, and when I was able to ride, I started trying to swing a rope,” Guy said. “When I would come home from school, my grandpa would have our horses saddled and ready to go to the arena, and he would turn out the calves. He supported us that way. My dad did the teaching.”
After she attended Texas Tech University, she decided to come back to the ranch to help her family and rope. That led to her eventually going pro in roping.
“I was a pretty successful roper, so I felt I had the opportunities to go achieve something so I should go ahead and try,” Guy said. “I never would have gone that route if I hadn’t had the supportive family on the ranch that I have, it gave me that opportunity to do it.”
She was revolutionary that way.
“When I started professionally [in the early 2000s] there were very few women that had ever tried to make a living training roping horses and roping—it was like I was a woman in a man’s world,” Guy said. “But now, women roping has gotten more and more common—there are a lot more out there now and a lot more opportunities. Maybe it’s because of the few of us that started out early on, that it has become like that.”
Guy’s road to success has been marked with various obstacles—her body, for one.
“I had a bad back all my life and I’ve had a couple back surgeries,” Guy said. “Anytime you have a bad back and you ride horses, it can be a difficult thing. I had a horse buck me off about 15 years ago and broke my leg really badly. I’ve had an elbow surgery on my right arm. But other than that, I’ve been fairly healthy.”
As a veteran roper, Guy is asked by young women for advice, and she’s happy to give back to her sport by sharing her experience.
