Kris Flanagan pictured here with his family and outriders Kale Lajeunesse and Tiegan Larouche, after a dominant showing at the North Battleford CPCA show over the weekend. (Facebook/Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association)

By Martin Martinson

A Weekend for the books

Meadow Lake’s Flanagan big winner at North Battleford CPCA show

Jun 19, 2023 | 3:53 PM

Meadow Lake’s Kris Flanagan is coming off a weekend to remember in North Battleford.

Coming flying out of the gates from opening day of the Canadian Professional Chuckwagon Association (CPCA) show at the N.B. Exhibition Grounds, Flanagan went on to sweep the weekend, as champion of the Show Aggregate, Day Money Run, and Dash for Cash.

Flanagan’s 01:02.16 was the fastest time of Day Four, finishing just .02 ahead of Frog Lake’s Preston Faithful, but a full second ahead of the field otherwise to win the Dash for Cash, while his 3:11.85 Aggregate time made him the lone driver to finish with a sub-3:12 on the weekend.

Providing the cherry on top, Flanagan now also leads the season’s Aggregate CPCA driver standings as well, with 284 points, two ahead of Loon Lake’s Devin Mitsuing (282) in second, and four more than Cando’s Ryan Baptiste (280) in third, leapfrogging from 13^th to top spot overall.

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“It’s still kind of surreal to me,” Flanagan said, reflecting on his success over the weekend. “I’ve always dreamed of this day, and now you wake up in the morning and it’s just another day. We load the horses up and go home, but yesterday was almost a blur.”

A veteran of the CPCA circuit, now in his ninth year as a driver, Flanagan said the work put in to get where he is today has only made the success this summer sweeter.

“I’ve never actually won a show before [this weekend] or gotten a day money before and this is my ninth-year racing wagons, so I was due,” he said with a laugh, before adding how special it is at this juncture of life specifically.

“I’ve been married since 2018, and we’ve got a three-year-old and a seven-month-old kid,” he said, letting out a smile. “It’s an awesome family sport, so they were [in the stands] to be there with me and it was definitely worth the wait to get that first one out of the way.”

Flanagan is coming off back-to-back 13th-place finishes in 2021 and ’22, and credits last year’s work integrating his young horses as playing a key role in the outfit’s success this season, in addition to mixing in some more impact young blood.

“I really moved some young ones around last year and by the end of the year they clicked,” he said. “Then I got a couple of new ones this year, with one of the new ones [in particular] that’s a left-wheeler, a left pull-horse, and he’s the key to the outfit. He’s gotten everybody starting harder and he’s kind of brought some life back into the outfit.

“The horses are just working awesome. They’re feeling good, and hopefully we can keep them going.”

The next stop on the CPCA schedule will be June 23-25 in Wainwright, Alta., just under two hours from where Flanagan now calls home in Bonnyville.

Full results from the North Battleford CPCA show can be found here.

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Martin.Martinson@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @MartyMartyPxP1