The ProRodeo Sports News - April 19, 2019

second off the run anywhere. He was right on the barrier and did a fast wrap, there was no way to be any faster.” Lee Phillips holds the tie-down roping record with a regulated run. In 1978, Phillips made a 5.7-second run in Assiniboia, Saskatchewan, but he did not leave the box, meaning he didn’t break the plane of the box before throwing his rope. Canton, now 53, remains just as modest about his world record in 2019 as he was in 2005. “It didn’t impact me much,” Canton said. “I just don’t get excited about a whole bunch.” Hutto witnessed Canton’s run and humble reaction firsthand. “He won’t hardly brag on himself,” Hutto told ProRodeo Sports News in 2005. “After he tied that one in 6.3, he rode over and sat on his rope can like it was no big deal. He is one of the most humble people I’ve ever been around and is definitely one of the most laid back.” Two days later, Canton won the average at Cheyenne (Wyo.) Frontier Days and jumped from 18th to eighth in the world standings en route to his final Wrangler NFR qualification. DRIVEN TO SUCCEED Throughout his career, Canton made 15Wrangler NFR qualifications (1987-90, 1993-98, 2001-05) and has won $1,502,892, so far. “It seemed like I went five or six years and took a break, and then competed four or five years at a time and took a break for different reasons,” Canton said, adding that he viewed rodeo as his job. “I needed to win to keep

CT scans determined he had suffered no broken bones, but he was immediately taken in for what turned out to be more than two hours of surgery to repair severed veins and to close an 8-to-10-inch gash in his abdomen. “I didn’t have any prolonging injury from it, it just kind of happened,” Canton said. “After it happened, I competed in St. Paul (Ore.) that year in July only a few months later.” STILL AROUND RODEO Now, Canton produces about 50 tie-down roping competitions each year and spends the summer taking his son Coleman, 12, to youth rodeos while competing at a few PRCA rodeos in the Northwest, mostly for the socializing while helping with his in-laws’ ranch. “It’s kind of what I enter in the Northwest for, just go visit and shoot the breeze with them,” Canton said. Friends aren’t the only connection Canton has maintained to professional rodeo. He also bought the calf he set the record on. “He’s a 2,200-pound family pet,” Canton laughed. Although he’s back in the box for a few PRCA rodeos each year, his focus is on his son’s blossoming rodeo career. Coleman Canton won the 10-and- under section of breakaway roping at the Junior NFR the last two years. “I leave out of here (Texas) like a snow bird and go there (the Northwest) in the summertime to get away from the heat and help with the ranch,” Canton said. “I’ll keep doing it until I don’t think I have a chance to win or can compete. It keeps me in shape and I can rope with my son.”

going, and years rolled into other years, and before you know it it’s been 20 years.” The 1987 tie-down roping rookie of the year finished as high as No. 3 in the world standings in 1988 and finished in the top 10 eight times. “He was always a fierce competitor,” Beaver said. “They say you make yourself and do what you want to do because of what is in you and what you got, the drive, you know,” Beaver said. “There’s none of us – Fred (Whitfield), Ricky, me, Blair (Burk), Troy Pruitt, I could go on and on – none of us came from a lot, but we made it on our own with our determination and fight, and Ricky was full of that.” Canton had emergency surgery in May 2013 after being injured when a horse fell on him at his Navasota, Texas, ranch. Canton was trying to get some calves away from the Koi pond he had built his wife, Christy, for Mother’s Day, when the rope horse he was riding slipped on a patch of wet grass and flipped over backwards and landed on him.

PRCA ProRodeo file photo Ricky Canton made the fastest tie-down roping time in PRCA history at 6.3 seconds during a slack run for the Strathmore (Alberta) Stampede, July 29, 2005.

ProRodeo Sports News 4/19/2019

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