Buddy Bensmiller not retired just yet
Buddy Bensmiller admits he’s still trying to make sense of another trip to the Rangeland Derby less than eight months after he used the Calgary Stampede barns to sell off most of the thoroughbreds on his main chuckwagon hook.
The 56-year-old, three-time champion of the sport’s premiere show had announced he was going into semiretirement prior to the start of the 10day run and the auction sale seemed to pretty much seal the deal.
But the man they call the Dewberry Rocket finished off the World Pro season with a string of new horses, roared up and magically clinched the 25th and final qualifying spot on the circuit in the season-ending show at Drumheller. Hello, Calgary! “I never did say I was retiring, only that I was shutting it down, slowing down. Then this came up,” said the father of chuckwagon and outriding sons David, Kurt and Chance and daughter Lisa, a World Pro official. “I had lots of phone calls, the boys wanted me to go, so I thought I might as well try it once more.
“I didn’t plan on it, I just ended up getting into that last place so . . .”
The Cheyenne Rodeo hall-of-famer had decided to step back from the sport because of nagging aches carried over from a serious car crash four years ago. When doctors told him he was going to need a new knee if he kept racing, he made up his mind to pack it up.
Now he will make his 34th consecutive appearance in the sport’s richest run this July as the Stampede celebrates its 100th birthday. And, once again, he’ll be hoping to go out with a bang in what once again may or may not be his final run.
“I hope it ain’t going to be like it was last year,” he said of one of his worst, if not the worst, finishes when he failed to crack the top 30 in the 36-wagon field. “I was sure disappointed with the way the Stampede turned out for me . . . . I just didn’t want it to be as bad as it was on my last year.”
Although he won his Calgary berth with the World Pros, he’ll rejoin the Canadian Pros so that he meets Rangeland eligibility requirements. A driver since 1972, Bensmiller won eight championships and eight Cheyenne Frontier Day shows, among many other show titles, when he ran with the Northern Pros, which was the predecessor to the Canadian Pro circuit.
“When Calgary’s over maybe I’ll just walk away and leave everything right out at the barns,” he said. “I’m sure the (family) will pick up the pieces.”