January 19, 2007

• Dog Racing Is Family Business

  

  The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race is still a month and a half away, but the mid-distance racing season started earlier this month.  Some of these races are qualifiers for the Iditarod, and many of the top mushers run them to warm up and shake down their teams.  Prize money for w inning a shorter race, of course, helps keep the dogs fed, and pays entry fees for other races.  The dogs love to run, and my experience of mushers suggests that they’re pretty much addicted to the trail and the competition.

  
  Lance Mackey in 2006

  As I’ve been looking over the lists of entrants for this year’s races, a lot of familiar family names have shown up.  For some mushing families, dog rearing, training and racing is a way of life.  Lance Mackey‘s father, Dick, was one of the founders of the Iditarod and an early winner.  A few years later, Lance’s eldest brother Rick won the Iditarod.  Lance has had some respectable finishes in the Iditarod, and has won the Yukon Quest twice.  This year, Lance won the inaugural Cantwell Classic 200 race, and his son Cain finished fourth in the Junior Cantwell Classic.

  When I first came to Alaska in the ‘seventies, Roxy Wright was a star sprint musher.  A decade ago, she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by Mush with PRIDE (providing responsible information on a dog’s environment).  For several years, some of the highlights of the Iditarod for me have been Roxy’s reports from the trail as she follows her son Ramy Brooks all the way from Anchorage to Nome.

  Dan Seavey was another of those who helped Joe Redington, Sr. start the Iditarod.  His son Mitch has won the race, and three of Mitch’s sons have completed the run to Nome.  The Redingtons are another multi-generational mushing family.

  Denali National Park Ranger and current Iditarod Champion Jeff King has three daughters who raise and train dogs and let their father race them.  The eldest, Cali, has run the Iditarod herself.

  

  Today is the start of the Kuskokwim 300.  Two father and son pairs will be competing.  Mike Williams, Sr., above, is one of my favorite mushers and one of few Alaska Natives who continues running the Iditarod since the preparation and competition have become too expensive for most village dwellers.  Mike finds the sponsors somehow, and always makes it known that he is, “mushing for sobriety,” in support of the Sobriety Movement.  This year his son Mike Junior is competing against him (and a full roster of other mushing greats) in the Kusko.

  

  My neighbor, four-time Iditarod champion Martin Buser, who wins awards for his exemplary dog care on the trail and at  Happy Trails Kennels, and who supports a number of worthy local efforts including Battle of the Books, named his two sons after checkpoints on the Iditarod Trail.  This year, Nicolai is away at college and his younger brother Rohn, above, is competing against their dad in the Kusko.  Rohn finished second in the Junior Iditarod in 2005 and 2006.

  Martin is… well, “nice guy” sorta says it but doesn’t begin to encompass the man.  In 2005 he won “Most Inspirational Musher” for running the Iditarod with a bandaged hand after having cut off a finger in a table saw accident in the week before the race.  He wasn’t an American citizen when he started winning the Iditarod, but at one of his wins he was met in Nome by an INS representative for his naturalization ceremony.  His race sponsors include our ISP and the veterinarian who takes care of his dogs and our dog and cats.

  

  During a big forest fire in the ‘nineties, he got into some brief and minor
  legal trouble for commandeering a fireboat on Big Lake when he found it
  just floating there at the dock doing nothing.  He and some friends made good use
  of it and saved some property around the lake.  One day a couple of years ago, I ran into Martin while we were both shopping at the Salvation Army Store.  One of the clerks told him someone had donated one of his Iditarod trading cards, and he enhanced its value for Sally Ann by autographing it.  Gotta love the guy.

  So, here’s the current dog racing news:

  

  Allen Moore of Two Rivers, Alaska won the Copper Basin 300, crossing the finish line in Glennallen at 9:16 PM on Monday, January 15. He finished the race in 58 hours and 58 minutes. His average speed on the trail was 7.7 miles per hour.

  As I said, the Kuskokwim 300 starts in Bethel today, in about three and a half hours.   Rohn Buser drew the #1 starting position, with Ramy Brooks, Jeff King and Aliy Zirkle (below) out behind him in that order.  Rohn’s dad drew the last start, #19.

  

  The Yukon Quest begins in Whitehorse on February 10 with 31 mushers.   To date 18 registered Iditarod mushers have withdrawn this year, leaving that field at 91 with 42 days to go until the start.

   

  Greyfox blogged today about hitting a moose.  Reading over my shoulder, Doug said, “Greyfox has entered the digital age… has a crisis and blogs about it before the adrenaline wears off.”

  

       

  • 7:18 pm
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