Breakaway World Champions have been crowned since 1974, but only on a larger stage since 2020. For decades, breakaway World Champions were crowned at the WPRA World Finals in Waco, Texas.
But in 2020, the tide was changing, with large ProRodeos like the Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo adding the event to their roster in 2019. When the NFR was moved to Arlington, Texas, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the National Finals Breakaway Roping (NFBR) was created and hosted in Globe Life Field—the same place the NFR was hosted in the evenings.
Since then, the NFR has returned to Las Vegas, and breakaway has followed. The NFBR was first hosted at The Orleans (2021) and moved to The South Point Arena from 2022 onward.
Dig into the full list of WPRA World Champion Breakaway Ropers thanks to Women in Rodeo supported R. Watson Boots below.
Table of contents
The Glory Days: 2020s
2023 — Shelby Boisjoli-Meged
2022 — Martha Angelone
2021 — Sawyer Gilbert
“Everyone still remembers the Sawyer Gilbert on the paint horse that had her boots tucked in her pants, probably in a misshaped black hat that when it was 110 degrees out,” Sawyer Gilbert said. “That was me. She’s still in there, we just put a professional spin on it now.”
Sawyer Gilbert showed the world that the little cowgirl from Buffalo, South Dakota, is in fact gold-buckle quality.
Gilbert, 19, showed up and made a bold statement at the 2021 National Finals of Breakaway Roping as she was crowned the World Champion Breakaway Roper and the average champion.
“It was my dream before it was even possible for breakaway ropers,” Gilbert said, “to win the average and the world title. Obviously, coming into this, I wanted to win the world for sure because it’s the coveted gold buckle, but to win the average to get me to that world title is even more special.”
2020 — Jackie Crawford
The Awakening: 2010s
2019 — Kelsie Chase
2018 — Kelsie Chase
2017 — Kelsie Chase
2016 — Jackie Crawford
2015 — Erin Johnson
2014 — Jackie Hobbs (Crawford)
2013 — Hope Thompson
Hope Thompson is no stranger to success with a rope. She can do it all—breakaway, heading, heeling. So it may be surprising to some when they find out that this WPRA World Champion, NFBR Qualifier, WRWC Champion, Roping.com coach, and CNFR Champion didn’t come from a rodeo household.
“I didn’t grow up in a rodeo family at all. My mom rescued these horses and brought them home, and my dad was like, ‘We don’t even have a fence.’ Mom said, ‘Well, we’ll have to build one,’” Thompson explained. “They took me to watch a play day and I fell in love with it and wanted to do it. I always wanted to rope. Carried a rope around. They didn’t know enough to teach me. I started out with the speed events—ran barrels, poles, all of that at the playdays.”
After meeting R.E. Josey, young Thompson began learning from the Josey family and clawed her way through the ranks, Around 2010, she put it all on the line and moved to the Guy Ranch in Abilene, Texas, over a decade ago. Since then, Thompson has continued to work hard to become one of the most influential roping competitors and coaches in the world.
2012 — Erin Johnson
Erin Johnson grew up on an Eastern Colorado, fourth-generation cattle ranch.
“Ranch work was always a part of our lives,” said Johnson, a three-time WPRA World Champion breakaway roper. “My siblings and I, we really didn’t get into rodeo. My parents took us to some gymkhanas when we were younger, and we learned to ride bareback. I don’t even think we had saddles until we were like 8, when we started showing in 4H. We showed cattle a lot.”
Johnson is also a two-time National Finals of Breakaway Roping qualifier. Her series on Roping.com discusses opportunities in college rodeo as well as breeding programs, the legacy of a great breakaway roping horse, and more.
2011 — Erin Johnson
2010 — Lari Dee Guy
The Die-Hard Decade: 2000s
2009 — Tana Felhauer
2008 — Lari Dee Guy
Lari Dee Guy made waves for pure handiness. Girls entered at one of the first big stand-alone tie-down and breakaway jackpots in Amarillo, Texas in 1999 will never forget the day they watched her use her loop as an over-and-under not once, but two times, and still win the day money. Jaws dropped.
She has always been revolutionary. But it’s not her countless college, amateur, jackpot and WPRA championships that have her on this list. It’s the top rope horses and top breakaway ropers she’s personally trained.
When the greatest female roper of all time began partnering on horses with the greatest male roper of all time, magic happened. The King of the Cowboys has loved the horses Guy has trained since he was 10 years old. Trevor Brazile’s relationship with Guy has deepened over time and is still going strong, and it gave an important credibility to her career.
“I feel I owe a lot to him in the aspect of when people really got to recognizing my horses,” she says. “Once they’ve seen a cowboy ride your horses, then people will take a closer look.”
2007 — Tammy Lewis
2006 — Leigh Ann Billingsley
2005 — Kim Williamson
2004 — Kim Williamson
2003 — Tami Noble
2002 — Nora Hunt
2001 — April Harms
2000 — Ashlee Miller
The Golden Age: 1990s
1999 — JJ Hampton
J.J. Hampton was–and is–to the WPRA what Cody Ohl was to the PRCA. That ride-or-die attitude; that pure craving for competition; that electricity.
“I love it,” she says. “There’s no other word. To go and enter and hear your name called and try to get to as many as you can… rodeoing is not always easy. It’s a grueling sport. It has no shame in taking you down to the bottom any time.”
She was right there 25 years ago hauling for world titles at big rodeos with more than a hundred entries. For some women, a lot of socializing happened back then. Not for J.J.
“I didn’t rodeo to make friends,” she says of all that time in the truck with her sister (Marty Yates’ mother), Angie. “I wasn’t mean, but my goal wasn’t to carouse around.”
She was purely there to compete. That full-throttle attitude dovetailed with her grit and try.
1998 — Rhonda Harrison
1997 — Lisa Gasperson
1996 — JJ Hampton
1995 — JJ Hampton
1994 — Lisa Gasperson
1993 — Lisa Pulse-Gasperson
1992 — Jimmi Jo Montera
Jimmi Jo Montera might look like a cross between a runway model and an Olympic athlete. But make no mistake—this Colorado cowgirl is one of the wolfiest women ever to swing a rope. Jimmi Jo and her team roping husband, Rick, own feedlots.
1991 — Jimmi Jo Montera
1990 — Jayme Reaves
The Pioneers: 1970s and 1980s
1989 — Betty Gayle Cooper
Hall-of-Famer Roy Cooper may have revolutionized tie-down roping, but no less than his sister revolutionized breakaway. Betty Gayle got the first rodeo scholarship ever awarded a woman. There, at ENMU, she won two national championships and three regional titles while being named Outstanding Woman Athlete.
Cooper-Ratliff then joined the GRA in 1975 and won nine world titles, including the breakaway gold buckle in 1989 and four tie-down championships. She also served plenty of time helping run the WPRA. But her Cowgirl Hall of Fame legacy was even richer for how many young breakaway ropers she brought along. Coaching Southeastern Oklahoma State University, she watched her kids win a record nine national team championships and two dozen individual titles.
What’s more? She invented that handy black plastic releasable hondo that revolutionized breakaway practice. The Magic Loop came out in 1998, just before she succumbed to cancer. She was still coaching breakaway ropers.
Why are there some gaps in the Breakaway World Champions? That’s because breakaway roping wasn’t an annual event in the WPRA until 1989.
1983 — Heather Hodson
1982 — Pam Minick
Pam Minick became a WPRA director in 1978 and later served as vice president of the WPRA for 16 years, winning the breakaway world title in ’82. She worked alongside Jimmie Gibbs Munroe, whose former roping experience she credits with the reason Munroe made sure women’s roping got as much attention as barrel racing. Together, they forced PRCA rodeos to come up with equal money for barrel racers.
“It took almost 50 years for women to get equal money,” Minick says. “Hopefully, it won’t take that long for breakaway ropers.”
