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Beane forges a second straight Stampede blacksmith title

July 11, 2010

CALGARY, AB --- Beane there. Done that. Two years in a row.

England’s Steven Beane was virtually unbeatable when it counted Sunday, dominating the semifinal and final rounds under the Big Top to win his second consecutive World Championship Blacksmiths’ Competition title at the Calgary Stampede.

Beane, who hails from Northallerton, North Yorkshire, is the first back-to-back WCBC champion since Billy Crothers of Wales won the second and third of his five Stampede crowns back in 1995 and 1996.

“It’s unbelievably hard to do that. Really, really hard,” said Beane, 31. “You’ve got so many good guys competing here . . . you’ve got to be on the top of your game, and I’m lucky I was on top of my game today.

“I’ve had a bad year up until now, to be honest,” added Beane, who fires up his forge at between 15 and 20 blacksmith shows a year. “I went to the European championships, where I’d won two years in a row, and I was second there. That was kind of hard to take. But I must admit that for the last couple of months, I’ve been focused on coming back here.”

Beane fired up a performance Sunday during the 31st annual WCBC that couldn’t be matched by any of his competitors. During the 10-man semifinal, he opened up a 21-point lead on Jake Engler of Magnolia, Texas, and in the final, he increased that advantage, prevailing by 32 points over Engler.

Beane finished with 147 points to Engler’s 115. As for the other finalists, Scotland’s Derek Gardner was third with 115 (Engler won a tiebreaker on the fit of a horse’s shoe), fellow Scot David Varini was fourth with 94, and Texan Gene Lieser ended up fifth with 87.

Beane wins a cheque for $10,000, as well as a gold-and-silver Stampede championship buckle, a limited edition bronze trophy, and a champion’s jacket. More than $50,000 in cash and prizes were handed out to WCBC competitors this weekend.

“It was pretty rough going for me today. Nothing was clicking,” said Engler. “Beane is always on the money, and he’s hard to beat. But I’m pretty happy with (second place). It can’t be too bad, since there’s only one guy better than me.”

The WCBC, known popularly as the “Olympics of blacksmithing,” attracted 58 competitors this year from 12 countries: England, Germany, New Zealand, Scotland, Hungary, Australia, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, South Africa, the United States and Canada.

Sunday morning’s semifinal saw the 10 remaining contestants shoe both front feet of a light draft horse in 60 minutes. Scotland’s Ian Gajczak, Americans Chris Madrid, Jim Quick, and Tim McPhee, and Colain Duret of Turner Valley, Alta., were eliminated as the field was narrowed to five.

The finalists were given another 60 minutes to shoe both hind feet of that same horse. Judges Craig Trnka of the U.S., a Stampede champ in 1999, and Andrew Reader-Smith of New Zealand, a WCBC finalist last year, based their decisions, through a blind judging process, on shoe forging, finish, and nail placement, as well as preparation and balance of the horses’ feet.

The WCBC has not crowned a Canadian champion since Bob Marshall in 1986. Duret carried Canadian hopes into Sunday’s showdown, and despite not advancing to the final, was satisfied with his showing.

“It went surprisingly well, I thought. For some reason, things just fell into place,” said Duret, 30, who’s consistently been a top-five finisher at the Canadian horeshoeing championships, held in Calgary each spring. “You’ve got to leave it all on the table at a competition like this, give it your best shot, and I thought I did that.”

Grant Moon of the Isle of Man was named Forging Champion this weekend, while Beane earned Shoeing Champion honours. The Artistic Champion nod went to Australia’s Dean Lewis, while Jonathon Nunn of the United Kingdom was named Rookie of the Year.

Blaine Virostek, who chairs the Stampede’s Blacksmith committee, was pleased with what he saw at this year’s 31st annual WCBC, which remains the blacksmith industry’s premier competition.

“All the other competitions in the world follow our lead,” said Virostek. “They’re all chasing us. That’s why we’re always trying to stay a step ahead, and continue to make changes for the betterment of the competition. We want to keep improving the show and challenging the competitors.”

Saturday night during the Metal Art Auction and Metal Art Showcase, an increasingly popular offshoot of the WCBC, Lewis swept up at the trophy table. Lewis won the pot luck artistic forging category with fellow Aussie Fred Savage, and was also named winner in the artistic forging and artistic metal non-forged categories. The seventh annual Metal Art Auction raised $13,000, with 60 per cent of proceeds going back to the artists.

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