March 20, 2007

• *crunch* *chomp* *blush*

  I’m eating some words here, issuing a retraction, a bit farther on, but first, here is what might turn out to be my next-to-last Iditarod report this year:

  Fifty-four mushers have finished the race (not counting Ramy Brooks, who finished under a big dark cloud and was disqualified).  Two mushers, Bruce Linton and Heather Siirtola, both rookies, are out of Safety on the last leg of the trail to Nome.  Donald Smidt left White Mountain for Safety late this morning, and the current and presumptive Red Lantern, Ellen Halvorson, left White Mountain early this afternoon.  The race could be over today, and should be over by tomorrow at the latest.

  Sunday night, the Mushers’ Awards Banquet was held in Nome.  I already told you that Sigrid Ekran is Rookie of the Year.  If you’ve been paying attention, you also know that Jeff King won the Gold Coast Award for being first into Unalakleet, and Martin Buser won First Musher to the Yukon and the Spirit of Alaska Award for being first to McGrath.

  A new award this year, The Northern Air Cargo Herbie Nayokpuk Memorial Award, a trophy depicting a baleen dog team on a granite base, is voted on by checkers at checkpoints along the Bering Sea Coast and awarded to the musher who best exemplifies Herbie’s spirit.  It was won by Louis Nelson, Sr.

  Ed Iten won the Leonhard Seppala Humanitarian Award for outstanding dog care.  Tollef Monson won both Most Improved Musher and the Sportsmanship Award.  He was running John Baker’s puppy team this year, and finished in tenth place.

  Lance Mackey’s lead dog Larry won the Lolly Medley Memorial Golden Harness Award.  In 1974, Lolly Medley was one of the first two women, along with Mary Shields, to finish the Iditarod.  Lolly’s son, Ramey Smyth, finished sixteenth this year.

  Australian volunteer veterinarian Mike Gascoigne won the Golden Stethoscope.  Lance Mackey had recommended him for an award after the vet diagnosed Zorro’s pneumonia and sat up through the night with him.

  Lance Mackey himself won the inaugural running of the Cantwell Classic this year, the Copper Basin 300 last year, and the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race in ’05, ’06, and ’07, this year becoming the first ever to win both Quest and Iditarod in the same year.  He also won the Dorothy Page Halfway Award and Most Inspirational Musher.  That last award isn’t only for his victories on the trail.  Lance had throat cancer, and following treatment for it his salivary glands don’t work, which makes eating problematic for him.  He dealt with that by going without food for long stretches of the race.  Oh, and he’s had a finger amputated too… and I’m sure there’s something else I’m forgetting.  He’s inspirational, fershure.

  Ramy Brooks 2006, photo credit: Jeff Schultz
  

  The scandal surrounding Ramy Brooks’s disqualification for abusing his team continues to escalate.  Today’s Anchorage Daily News carried two stories, headlined Teacher says brooks was slugging, kicking his dogs and Iditarod takes lumps for Brooks’ dog beating
  . 

  Ramy Brooks 2007, photo credit Bob Hallinen

  

  Witnesses’ stories don’t conform to either the statement Ramy Brooks made, “I don’t agree with the idea it was abuse, but I accept their [the Trail Committee's] decision.  I probably didn’t use the best of language, and I put myself into a compromising situation,” or the official statements issued by the Trail Committee. 

  I dunno.  It seems to me that the differences between these two photos reflect more than just the passage of a year, different lighting, and the emotions registered by the facial expressions.  In the latter one, to me, Ramy looks puffy, pasty, and unwell.  Greyfox and I have been speculating privately about what might account for his behavior and the altered appearance, but it would be irresponsible to speculate publicly.  As I said, I dunno.

  Still haven’t had enough?  http://www.dogsled.com/

  
  RETRACTION

  Disregard everything I said about horse racing.  I was writing from a position of ignorance.  Warweasel set me straight:

  …thoroughbreds want to run, too… but not as hard for as long as they
  do in some races.  Huge animals on thin, spindly legs are not meant to
  be run like that.  I worked security at the state fairgrounds here and
  during racing season it was sickening to see all the horses that had to
  be destroyed.  It was often as many as one a week, sometimes more than
  one.  It was sickening.

  It has occurred to me that when most people think of horse races, they think of thoroughbreds on oval tracks.  When most people think of dog racing, of course they think of greyhounds.  Duh.  I have heard so many ugly stories about injured racehorses and the treatment of racing greyhounds, I have no excuse for not thinking about those popular forms of racing.

  I have seen horse races on TV.  I don’t recall ever seeing a conventional dog race.  When I think, “dog track,” the image in my mind is the Montana Creek Dog Mushers’ Association sprint track up the road.  Around here, we don’t usually say, “sled dog racing.”  The only racing dogs we have here pull sleds.  “Dog racing,” in my mind, isn’t the Iditarod — that’s a special case, very special.  The dog races I know are the ones I have experienced first-hand, just up the road.

  The only horse races I have experienced first-hand have been a few little ones at county fairs, and the horses involved weren’t overbred specialists.  When I drove through Kentucky, I saw some beautiful thoroughbreds.  They would run across the green fields and up to the white fences to watch us pass by.  The horses I have known personally were workhorses and cutting horses, big powerful Belgians, Shires, and Percherons, or agile quarterhorses.  I have watched more barrel racers at rodeos than racehorses on tracks. 

  I should stick to what I know, but I don’t think I’m quite ready to write about rodeo, either.  I have heard that animal rights activists don’t care for it much.

  

  • 8:45 pm
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