Season Not Quite Finished For Bensmiller

By Laurence Heinen

Chuckwagon racing fans in Lloydminster were treated to another ‘Thriller From Bensmiller’ on Wednesday night.

Competing in the Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association’s final show of the season, Kurt Bensmiller raced around the Lloydminster Agricultural Exhibition Association track aboard his Top Grade Construction wagon in Wednesday’s fastest time of 1:21.75.

Although the dust settled on the World Professional Chuckwagon Association season last weekend in Rocky Mountain House, Bensmiller decided to make the 45-minute drive from his home in Dewberry to compete in Lloydminster.

“They asked for guys to help put on a show there so that they had enough wagons,” said Bensmiller, who beat Preston Faithful and his Ayik Energy outfit across the finish line by 89/100ths of a second in Wednesday’s sixth heat.

Joining Bensmiller and Faithful from the WPCA circuit in the Alberta/Saskatchewan border town to compete from Wednesday to Sunday are Wade Salmond, Todd Baptiste and DJ King.

“It’s their final, so we can’t qualify (for Sunday’s CPCA championship dash),” said Bensmiller, who’s one of 27 drivers taking part in the final show of the chuckwagon-racing campaign. “We can still go win day money and get a few new horses in and get them a little more experience. Hopefully that helps make decisions easier for next spring. I’m sure more guys would have done it, but it’s been a long season.”

Driving his OCL New Feathers outfit, Salmond had Thursday’s fastest time of 1:20.21, while Bensmiller finished second on the night in 1:21.05.

After finishing seventh in the WPCA Pro Tour driver standings in 2024, Bensmiller slipped slightly to eighth place overall this season, just three points behind his nephew Cruise Bensmiller.

“We didn’t win anything, which is unfortunate,” said Bensmiller, who qualified to compete in three championship dashes in Bonnyville, Medicine Hat and at last Sunday’s Battle of the Rockies in Rocky Mountain House.

“It was some good strides forward, but that seems to be the problem I’ve had the last couple of years is I keep rotating a lot of new (horses),” explained the veteran driver, who won his first World title in 2015 before adding three more from 2017 to 2019. “The consistency isn’t quite there, so getting them to learn about the travel and the driving at each different show venue and barrels and at the same time and trying to get them to mesh well with others makes the consistency a little harder to find.”

Towards the end of the season, Bensmiller put together one outfit that started to get some results. “I don’t know if they were 100 per cent consistent just yet, but I was happy with their progress,” said Bensmiller of his outfit that was able to navigate the figure-eight turn in the infield to take the rail on a few different occasions. “Obviously there’s still work to be done there, but they showed a lot of promise.”

Due to their consistent results, the four horses of Bensmiller’s main outfit earned themselves some well-deserved time off. “The outfit that I thought was doing really well towards the end of the year, they’ll obviously stay at home,” said Bensmiller, who only took eight driving horses and five outriding horses with him to Lloydminster. “I took some from Cruise that need to go in a few more races and some of mine, and just use this chance – with it being so close to home – to be able to give them a little more experience before we turn ’em out. Now that this is just for prize money, we might as well let them all go.”

Following his final race on Sunday, Bensmiller will transport his equine athletes back to Dewberry to join the others for a rest. “The plan is to let them come off their racetrack high and relax, because they need a break just like everybody else,” said Bensmiller, whose dad Buddy, has already been busy buying new horses for him and Cruise. “Once I get the rest of them bought up, then we’ll probably start breaking some of them and get them in teams anyway before the snow flies, so we kind of have a start on them for next year.”

As for next season, Bensmiller has high hopes that he can return to the form that saw him win four World Championships and four Rangeland Derby titles at the Calgary Stampede in addition to a pair of Ponoka Stampede victories

“I think if you’re not optimistic, well next year you’re going to struggle no matter what if you’re thinking that you don’t have a shot,” he said. “I think I’m probably maybe a couple more strides further than I was.

“I know what it takes to be on top and to be a championship group, but I don’t think we’re quite there yet. It’ll depend on how these new ones turn out that we get and then (how they) mesh with the horses that were new in the last couple years. I know it’s a real young barn, the oldest driving horse I have is 10 years old and it’s his second year. I would say, I’m hoping that we’re closer to contenders and we’re more of a threat every time.”