Neff, in an interview in Ruby, said race officials then gave him a choice.
“I was told I had a choice of scratching or being disqualified,” he said. “For the sake of the mushing community, I told them I was a scratch.”
Neff said veterinarians told him his dogs weren’t in good enough condition to run, and that there were no other options like taking a longer rest in Ruby. He said his dogs had diarrhea when he arrived in Ruby, but they had started to recover.
“I was on brakes most of the time. These girls are fast dogs,” he said. “Whatever happens to me happens to me — I love these dogs.”
I'm guessing from the above that the dogs were very thin (the one thing we couldn't see about them in their coats). Musing on it - once they've lost that weight, it's going to take a while to regain it. And unless he packed a week's worth of food in his Ruby drop bags (unlikely), it doesn't leave him much choice. If the dogs were sick, then the only thing to do is slow down, which he didn't appear to be doing, so it was a slow train wreck going down the trail.
