CORVALLIS — During his professional rodeo career, Caleb Bennett won numerous saddles and championship rings and more belt buckles than he can count. He qualified for the National Finals Rodeo 10 times and won close to $2 million on the PRCA circuit.
He’s had memorable rides and favorite rodeos, heartbreaking buckoffs and devastating injuries.
But the relationships with his fellow cowboys stand above the rest.
“The brotherhood and that camaraderie of the bareback riders is unlike anything else,” Bennett, 36, said in a sit-down interview with MTN Sports. “And I've always, always looked forward to that time in the locker room or that time behind the chutes getting ready — just hanging out, joking with the guys, you know, making fun of each other. Everybody takes a joke and throws it right back at you.
“And I don't know, just that friendship you build, that brotherhood, you know, it's unlike anything else I could ever explain. I mean, I don't know if there's words that can explain it, but that is something I know for sure I'll miss as the years go on.”
Bennett, who has called Corvallis home with his wife Savannah since 2018, announced his retirement from pro rodeo in December. His career started in 2012, but, of course, his love for rodeo goes back much further.
Bennett grew up in Tremonton, Utah, in a rodeo family. His mother was a barrel racer, and his older brother Dustin was a Utah high school state champion steer wrestler. Caleb got his start in the timed events but quickly realized his calling was in roughstock.
“It was probably my sophomore year in high school, maybe junior year, and I just won state finals, went on to nationals,” he recalled. “I don't know, there's just that click where, like, the roping and stuff and the riding bulls, I enjoyed it, but it wasn't on my mind as much as riding bucking horses. And I feel like that's when, at a younger age, when my level of riding started changing and I noticed it.
“I started craving it more, and as I progressed and got older, senior in high school, that's all I could think about. ... That's all I could dream about, wanted to be, eat, sleep, drink, was being at the NFR and ride bucking horses. And that right there is when I knew, like, I want to go and make a living, make a career out of this if possible.”
Bennett was the 2007 National High School Finals Rodeo bareback champion and qualified for the College National Finals Rodeo as a freshman at Weber State in 2008. He dabbled on the professional circuit while in college, making the move to full-time pro bareback rider in 2012.
“I devoted a lot of time into getting myself in better physical and mental shape, like all of November, December and January leading up to that new year,” Bennett said. “And I just mentally felt better than ever about myself, and that carried right over into my riding. And it was amazing what it did for my riding when I started taking care of myself, really preparing, actually doing the stuff behind the scenes that a lot of people don't think you do or need to do.
“And that's when everything just turned, and I left nothing else on the table. That's what I was going to do that year. I was going to make the NFR and I was going to start making a living doing something I loved, and that was the first year of 10 NFRs that I qualified for.”
The years of training turned Bennett into an overnight star in the PRCA.
He won 10 rodeos to qualify for his first NFR, where he won one round and placed in three others to finish seventh in both the average and world standings.
“It was surreal,” Bennett said of his first NFR appearance. “I still remember, I mean, Round 1 sitting there with a big grin on my face, you know, just propped up against the bucking chutes, talking to a buddy — or not even talking, I guess I was just watching. Like, a few guys had went.
“I was down the list a little ways, and I remember one of the other guys I was traveling with looked at me and he says, ‘Hey, Smiley, quit smiling and get your horse pulled. You're in the chutes, and they've only got a few left till you.’ And I was just like, oh, I got to get my head in the game. Like, I just kind of lost (focus). I was in awe.
“It took a good four or five, maybe six, rounds before it really sunk in, like I was there. I was there competing against the best horses in the world, against the other 14 best guys in the world.”
From there, it was a whirlwind career. He qualified for the NFR nine times over the next 10 years, only missing the Finals in 2020. He’s also spent the past eight years as the PRCA’s bareback riding director, an elected position he’ll hold for at least two more years.
The 2017 and 2018 NFRs stand out above the rest — 2017 because he and Savannah had just started dating and he flew her to Las Vegas for the final rounds, and 2018 because he and friend Tim O’Connell were battling it out for the world title.
They each won a round and traded places atop the world standings throughout the first nine days of the event. As Bennett recalled, he “just had to go out and do my job with the horse I had to seal up a world title, and let’s just say it didn’t go my way.”
Bennett got bucked off and ended up sixth in the world standings. He finished his career with seven top-10 world finishes.
“You take a beating,” he said. “You go from just riding a broke, gentle horse, roping cattle, you know, or just loping around a pasture, and all of a sudden now you’re tying to something that's going to try to tear your arm off.
“Even clinics I teach nowadays, that's the first thing I tell kids when they're there and they've never been on one. You better have the grit, you better have this on your mind that it better be something you want, because it hurts. It hurts from day one clear through the end of it. Like even the fun ones, the nice ones, they still hurt something somewhere.”
The hurt is partially what led Bennett to calling it a career.
He’s also a part-time personal trainer and nutrition coach — he works with Champion Living Fitness, which focuses on fitness training for rodeo athletes — and has long prided himself on taking care of his body to handle the rigors of the pro rodeo season.
At The Calgary Stampede in 2023, Bennett said he suffered a fluke injury, tearing his “leg into bits and pieces just mid-ride.” The injury derailed his season but allowed him to gain some perspective at home, where he was able to spend more time on the ranch with his wife. It was then, he decided, that the 2024 season would likely be his last on the professional circuit.
Another injury in 2024 sealed his decision.
“I still can bend over and touch my toes. I can still get out of bed in the morning without aches and pains,” he said. “And, my wife and I are wanting to have kids one day, plan on having kids. I want to be able to get down and up off the floor and play with them and take them hiking and do these things.
“And that's when it all just hit me. It's like, you know what? I'm going to finish this year off strong and have fun doing it. If I make the NFR, awesome. If I don't, I know at the end of it, it's right and it's probably what I need to do. So, it was about the first, mid-August, I was like, this is my last year, so I might as well go and enjoy these last few rides.”
As he rides off into the sunset, life is really just beginning for Bennett.
He and Savannah are expecting their first child, a girl, in May.
"That's one bonus, I guess, to being retired before your first one hits the ground, is I'm actually going to be able to help raise this little one, unlike all the other rodeo guys that I hang out with or, you know, been buddies with. They have to kiss their kids goodbye and their wives goodbye to go on the road,” Bennett said. “That ship sailed and passed for me, so now I'm home every night and every day with them.”
Bennett is still transitioning to his new 9-to-5 job — though he said he keeps going in earlier and earlier because he’s enjoying it so much — at his father-in-law's car dealership, which includes Salmon River Quality Motors in Salmon, Idaho, and Hamilton RV and Quality Used Cars in Hamilton.
He’s sold a few cars in the three weeks he’s been on the job, but few have recognized they’re dealing with a world-class bareback rider.
“I'm incognito now,” Bennett said. “I'm in a ball cap and sweater, a vest, you know, and just enjoying everyday life and being able to be at home and come home to my bed every night and my wife. And it's a huge blessing, and I'm very thankful for all that.”
