Western Shooting Horse

Jimmie Allen - The Big Iron

Back when he was a kid, Jimmie Allen and some of his pals had their own version of Cowboy Mounted Shooting. “We used to ride horses through some old, rough countryside and pretend like we were in a Western movie,” he remembers.  “One group of us would be the good guys, and the other group would be the bad guys.  And we’d actually shoot BB guns at one another. A couple of us got shot pretty good.”

You’ve got to be tough to try that. Jimmie Allen is that tough—and that’s why he’s known as Big Iron.
And it also explains the kind of competitive fire and determination that’s made the Mens 6 a top mounted shooter.

Forged in the Fires
Jimmie Allen’s life story is about as solid as iron. He was born and raised in Christian County, Missouri, 47 years ago. In fact, he’s lived his entire life there, in the southwest part of the state (and home to entertainment burg Branson).

Horses were always in the picture. His dad put him on a horse as soon as the baby came home from the hospital.  He had his first horse at age 6.  Jimmie’s father ordered a pony saddle for him out of the Sears and Roebuck catalogue, putting down $2.00 a month until it was paid off.  Jimmie later used that saddle with his own kids and grandkids (it’s now the base of a lamp).

Competition was in his blood. He started riding at showdeos and other kid competitions when he was 11, winning his first buckle when he was 13.  “I was hooked.”

In 1982, as a high school senior, Jimmie almost swept the events at the Missouri State High School Rodeo Championships (his only reserve: calf roping).
And that experience taught him a lesson he still lives by—you have to have a quality animal under you if you’re going to win.

Make no mistake, Jimmie Allen liked (and likes) to win.  Winning got the adrenaline going.

But as he moved along, it also provided cash: “I’ll compete in about anything on horseback for money.  It can be a horse race or cutting or roping.” Or mounted shooting.

Running for Dough
By the time he was 20, Jimmie had his own spread and began training horses.  But he could never get away from competing in rodeos. For money.

“When I was younger, I used to take our house payment and go win enough to pay three or four house payments,” he says.  “There’s been several times I’ve won enough to pay the bills. Or I’ve lost enough, I couldn’t pay my bills.”

That takes nerves of iron.

He had both experiences when he competed in the Pro Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA) Great Lakes Circuit, mostly as a team roper, between 1992 and 2006. He was the top cowboy in both ’92 and ’06.

It was his training business that brought Jimmie to mounted shooting.

With Gun in Hand
The year was 1998.  Dan Plaster—the current CMSA president who hails from the same Ozark neck of the woods as Jimmie—was looking for a good mounted shooting horse. 

Allen had never trained a horse for the sport, but he was able to find a mount for Plaster. Soon, the two were going to practice shoots and local matches.
The appeal was obvious for a guy who once played outlaws and lawmen with BB guns. “The thing that I really liked about mounted shooting, it gave you a really good idea of what gunfighters and the ranchers who fought off rustlers, what they went through.  It gave you a whole new way of looking at the difficulties they went through just using their guns.”

But Jimmie himself knew next to nothing about pistols, and he learned the hard way. Big Iron saved money by buying cheap guns with slow actions. He still took top honors occasionally (he doesn’t remember his first win). It took him awhile to figure out that good equipment, like a good horse, helps keep you competitive.

Allen stayed pretty much close to home in the early going. The big shoots were far away and expensive. But that changed in 2001, when he attended the CMSA Worlds in Arizona. “I never had plans for going.  But Lynn Merrick bought a horse from me, and she told me she would pay my way to the Worlds and I could deliver the horse down there to her. And I rode her horse, Strawberry Wine.”

On one run, the pair ended up setting a new world record.  It was a great start to an outstanding career.

Buckles, Buckles Everywhere
The next year, Jimmie acquired his mount Barbarosa. The two have been a top team ever since, winning four Pro titles at the CMSA Nationals and Worlds and seven Superhorse championships, (including 2009).

In fact, there have been so many wins that Jimmie can’t count them all. When I asked him about that, he started going around his house, trying to locate all of his championship buckles.  The number kept growing as he found some on belts, in closets, in corners, just about everywhere.  Let’s just say that between Jimmie and his son Logan, there are more than 100 match victories on the resume.

Not so coincidentally, over the past decade, his training business has thrived, too. Allen continues to be one of the best trainers in mounted shooting, bringing out horses that can do multiple things—trail riding, working cattle, ranch rodeos, roping, as well as mounted shooting. In that way, they’re a reflection of the man, who likes to do all those things (and more) himself.

Not bad for a guy who took a few BB pellets in his hide as a kid (even he admits now that it probably wasn’t a very good idea). A guy who sometimes couldn’t pay his bills because he’d put the money on entry fees.

Life is good for Jimmie Allen, especially when it comes to mounted shooting. “You get to ride a fast horse and shoot a gun and have a handle like Big Iron.  It don’t get any funner than that.”