Dallam County teen’s steer ‘Leadfoot’ is the 2024 junior champion at Fort Worth Stock Show
Winning steer shows runs in the family for the Bezners.
Thirty-three years after her father, Stephen Benzer, took home the Grand Champion prize at Fort Worth’s Junior Steer Show, Elli Benzer of Dallam County 4-H has won the coveted prize herself.
The 17-year-old and her European cross breed steer named Leadfoot triumphed Friday after two days of deliberations in a field with 1,616 other contenders at the 2024 Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo.
But Leadfoot stuck out from the beginning.
“He walked in and it’s almost like the Fort Worth coliseum lights shined a little brighter on him,” said Mark Hoge, judge of the Stock Show’s 2024 junior steer competition. “He is just perfectly groomed, perfect feet, perfect structure. Perfect muscularity. Just everything about him, he wanted to be a superstar.”
Elli’s father said watching her and Leadfoot win was an even better feeling than when he won in 1991.
“There’s pure elation, pure joy, pure unbelief,” Stephen said.
Tears ran down Elli’s eyes when she was reunited with her father on the red dirt of the Will Rogers Coliseum over a long hug.
“I always looked up to him,” Ellie told the Star Telegram.
Elli also said that she named her steer after a nickname her father had given both of them.
“My dad said I had a lead foot and so did he. So that’s always been his name,” Elli said.
Saturday morning, Leadfoot will be auctioned off during the Junior Sale of Champions at Watt Arena in the Will Rogers Memorial Center. The proceeds will go toward Elli’s college education.
Leadfoot may have an aggressive-sounding name, but the steer seemed to be anything but. As family, friends and reporters swarmed Elli and her grand champion, many remarked at how calm he remained in the midst of all the excitement.
Ellie told reporters that she’s spent most of her free time with Leadfoot preparing for today.
“I get home from school and I go to the barn every day and wash and dry him, I don’t go to basketball games and spend a lot of my time at the barn,” Elli said.
Elli isn’t the only one whose dreams came true Friday.
Hoge, who has been a livestock judge most of his life, traveled down from Illinois to judge the junior steer show.
“Everybody has a bucket list. I don’t care what sport you’re in, or what passion you have…this is the ultimate bucket list show that I had,” Hoge said. “I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve judged a lot of shows across the country, and this was actually my last one to check off the utopian, ideal, perfect world of livestock judging, as a show judge to do.”
While giving the opportunity of a lifetime to only one of the hundreds of children who compete is a daunting task, Hoge tries to keep emotions out of the mix.
“Our children show livestock. And so most of the days I’m on the other side of the fence,” Hoge said. “So when I step in the ring, I try to be a judge that I would want to show too as a parent. And so the decisions are really, really intense out here, and if you let emotion weigh in your decisions will start to get clouded.”
The Junior Sale of Champions auction has shattered records each of the last two years.
In February 2023, Sadie Wampler of Canyon watched as her grand champion steer “Snoop Dog” sold for a whopping $440,000 to Fort Wort-based insurance and financial broker group Higginbotham & Associates.
The 2022 Grand Champion, a black cross named Steve, sold for $310,000, which beat a record set in 2021 by just $10,000.
This weekend’s competition and auction caps off the 23 days of shows, rodeos and other events at the Stock Show, where ranchers, farmers, trainers and livestock traders have flocked to Fort Worth each year since the late 1800s.
This story was originally published February 2, 2024 at 4:50 PM.
