YORKTON - When you grow up around horses it’s a difficult interest to shake.
For Jonathan Bell that interest has manifested itself taking the reins of a chariot team racing with the Eastern Professional Chariot and Chuckwagon Association.
Bell said he was raised around horses, at least until his mid-teens when the lure of a pay cheque took over.
“I went to Alberta oil patch after high school,” Bell told Yorkton This Week as he prepared for the first of three days of National Bank Financial Chariot Racing at the Yorkton Exhibition.
Then Bell moved back, and that’s when he came under the tutledge of Shayne Salmond.
“Shayne got me back into it again,” he said.
At first Bell helped break some horses, and drive them during cool down.
Then the suggestion came.
Bell said Salmond figured if he was doing the work associated with racing, then why not actually race?
So this year at the EPCCA races in St. Louis Bell raced.
“The first race was pretty nerve racking to be out on the track with other racers – to be on the track racing against somebody else,” he said.
But the nerves soon quelled.
“The second day was a little more fun, a lot more relaxed,” said Bell.
Since the first meet Bell has ran at Melville, Sturgis, Pilot Butte, Porcupine Plain and this week in Yorkton.
“Every race it’s a bit easier,” he said, adding it’s really an education on the fly. Each race is a lesson. “With each race I learn a little more.”
And, after class Salmond is on hand to offer sage advice too.
“It’s huge having someone like Shayne mentor me. And, his dad Wayne says a few things too –where I can improve,” said Bell.
Another plus in a summer of learning the craft of chariot racing is having ‘Banjo’ on his team. Bell explained Banjo is his 12-year-old leader in the races. He knows what his job is on the track and really leads the other younger horse.
The sport is also family friendly, wife and kids attending event, and Bell added “mom comes out and cooks for us. . . It helps a lot to have that family support.”
Wins haven’t come yet, but Bell – who works as a mechanic when not racing, said he’s not sure that will ever matter much to him.
“The biggest thing is just to have some fun,” he said, adding his primary goal is to make a safe drive around the track and enjoy the experience.
And so far Bell’s focus is just on chariots, not yet being drawn to chuckwagons.
“We’ll see what happens. Time will tell what I will do in the future, but I’m pretty sure I will just stick with chariots,” he said.
