For a second year in a row, Kurt Bensmiller was on top of the auction block, taking home $170,000 in a tie with fellow chuckwagon competitor Kris Molle for the top bids for the 2023 Calgary Stampede canvas auction.

The victory in the auction was the veteran rider’s fifth since 2011 and also represented another Stampede first in decades: a dead heat between bidders.

“Being at the top, it’s just a small part of being at the Stampede. We’re looking forward to actually racing here—that’s when the most important part happens,” said Bensmiller.

The Grey Eagle Resort and Casino made the top bid for Bensmiller, who has a long history and connection to Tsuut’ina.

“I’m fast horse… that’s my Tsuut’ina name, and I wear it proudly on the back of my wagon when I race,” Bensmiller said.

Tyrone Waite, CEO of the Grey Eagle Resort and Casino said that supporting Bensmiller and the sport of chuckwagon racing was a natural one for the organization.

“Kurt’s been a very good ally of the Tsuut’ina nation on multiple occasions. From my perspective, chuckwagon racing is the absolute best sport on the planet. It’s uniquely Calgary,” said Waite.

“We’re in the hospitality business, the Calgary Stampede is the biggest hospitality event there is in the city and Grey Eagle wants to be the best hospitality provider we can, anywhere, so the two go hand in hand and Kurt’s a natural fit for us.”

The total bidding for this year’s auction was $2.75 million, up from $2.105 million in 2022. The average bids were also up by $23,889 over 2022, to an average bid price of $101,852.

Hometown connection for Molle

Molle’s top finish was also not by accident this year, as Graf Mechanical Ltd. came to the auction to bid because of the personal connection that the rider to the company.

“Kris is from the same small town that we’re from,” said Colton Graf, owner of Graf Mechanical.

“My dad and him know each other from a lot of years back, and my dad and I have a business together, and we thought what better time to do it.”

That top $170,000 bid, said Graf, was going towards a good cause in supporting Molle.

“Yeah, it’s lots. It goes to good cause obviously, these guys can’t do it without us bidding.”

Molle was the top-ranked chuckwagon racer in 2022’s Stampede. Something he joked about when talking about the tie placement with Bensmiller at the auction.

“I just teased him on the way up here, ‘it’s nice to be rubbing elbows with the elite.'”

Bids are up, and so too the prospects for the sport

Will Osler, president and chair of the Calgary Stampede said that the organization was grateful for the increase in bidding this year.

“It shows the great support for the sport of chuckwagon racing and the Rangeland Derby in the community,” Osler said.

“We’re delighted that there was a few competitive bids that threw some numbers up. And it’s about the families in what they go through keeping this sport alive.”

Among those competitive bids for the evening was a back-and-forth over driver Codey McCurrah, who netted $80,000 for his canvas during the auction.

Speaking to LWC before the auction began, he said he’d have liked to make that bid level during the evening.

“That would be a nice feather in the cap,” McCurrah said.

“We use these funds to care for the horses. All that money goes back into the horses, so if we’re a little short here, you know, I don’t want to short the horses.”

Osler said that chuckwagon racing has always been an intimate sport for the families that compete, some of them going back to the original races at the Stampede 100 years ago in 1923.

“When someone says that chuckwagon racing is in their blood, they mean it and whole entire families. The moms, the dads, the kids are involved in the sport,” Osler said.

“Without the support that comes from an event like this, it makes it harder for them to run, harder for them to do what they love to do—and it’s important for that reason.”