Banquet

[Leaddog]

Leaddog any update on power? I can't tell from the Nome webcam.

Sorry, my folks flew out a couple hours ago, so no idea whether power has come back on to the town.

[flowerpower]

Seems to be on, at least at the banquet.

[fladogfan]

https://iditarod.com/live/

Join us there and here in the Breakers Bar and Grill

chat/

[elsietee]

I tried valiantly to stay awake for the whole banquet while in the uk (it finished at 4:30 am), but fell asleep from Aaron Peck to Dallas, so missed all the top ten between them.

Who won the ATV?

Hoping they’ll post the footage later so I can rewatch that part.

Noted however both Paige and Mille’s representative make remarks regarding putting your dogs before the rules (re the Michelle and Mille dropping places due to Rule 37 violation).

[fladogfan]

I think it was Chad Stoddard who won the ATV. Please correct me if I am wrong.

[flowerpower]

I tried too, and finally had to give it up. Can't party like I'm 21 anymore!

[libby the lab]

Yes Chad won ATV! There is a replay on the Insider

[Breeze]

We can be of differing opinion about how the Iditarod rules are enforced. Since all of us here in this forum arrived here after one date, no one in this group can remember when Mark Nordman was not Race Marshall. We all pretty much know how he's going to rule on rules.

Animal rights activists have been busy persuading race sponsors that the Iditarod is abusive and lethal to dogs who pull sleds. Matters not whether those activists are right or wrong, just the fact that they can sway opinion is quite enough. Mushers REALLY don't want to be individually subject to protests and hrrassment at their homes, nor do they want the ITC to be harrassed for bad outcomes for dogs within the race.

Personally, my feeling is that the Finisher's Club needs a real dialog with the ITC about what dog care and safety looks like. There won't be a race without sponsors, and there won't be a race without competitors.

[JLJ]

I agree that rule management can be complicated, but I think that 'promoting dog welfare is the priority' shouldn't be just talk, and requires intelligent, thoughtful, situation specific decisions by not only mushers, but also by race authorities.

An example of this I remember, I think. (I'm pretty much never confident in recollections of my aged brain). A few years ago in the Quest, a musher, and I'm fairly sure it was Brent, was traveling along a stretch of trail that went along a creek, so low, windy and very cold. He observed strange behavior from two and only two of his dogs. As I recall he described it as suddenly flopping over and briefly lying still in a way that he had never seen from them or any other of his dogs. He checked them, and said they seemed fine, but the father of those two dogs had died suddenly, from a cause that was never able to be identified. After some consideration, he decided that he should push his emergency button. He did so, and explained the circumstances and asked if it would be possible to get help that included a vet out to him. If not, he said, he could continue with the team, or continue, carrying the two dogs in the sled, but if getting them checked by an expert without moving them was possible he thought it would be wiser, considering their odd behavior and their father's puzzling death. He was told that a vet would be on the way promptly.

The vet arrived, checked the dogs, found no problem and they all traveled slowly back to the checkpoint, where another check indicated that the dogs in question and all the rest of the team was in good shape. He just assumed that he was out of the race, but the Quest authorities told him that, because his problem was one that he had no reason to expect, and because of the nature of their father's death he did have unique reason to be concerned that it might be an indicator of an unknown life threatening situation for those dogs, and because he had definitely not gained any race time advantage as a result of calling for help and getting the dogs expert help, he would be allowed to continue the race if he wished, because the behavior he had shown was exactly the sort of dog care they wanted to encourage. He thanked them, but said that he thought he should scratch and stay with his dogs, as if there *were* any further signs of some unusual problem he would be the one most likely to recognize atypical behavior quickly.

I think that both the race authorities, and Brent, in this instance, were examples of what is appropriate.

Sorry this was posted too early -- I'm using a borrowed, very eccentric, computer and about every ten characters I type it does something crazy -- all sorts of wild things -- in this instance it decided to post the message as I was typing. Hope I edited it OK.

[Leaddog]

the Finisher's Club needs a real dialog with the ITC about what dog care and safety looks like

Maybe (hopefully) I'm proven wrong, but I wouldn't hold my breath on the IOFC playing a role in that. The IOFC is a group with VERY diverse opinions, to put it mildly - there are many of its members who have strongly opined that there is TOO MUCH oversight in the name of dog health and safety and that the race should dial back the veterinary program. In fact, back in early 2000's, the IOFC successfully convinced the ITC to give an IOFC committee the authority to review the performance of individual veterinarians and ban those who they felt shouldn't be allowed to participate in future events. THAT went over like a lead balloon for the veterinarians who were not only not paid, but taking hits in the neighborhood of thousands of dollars in lost practice income to staff checkpoints. Don't get me wrong - there WERE veterinarians who were not exactly assets to the checkpoints, but it was a heavy-handed approach that drove off more good vets than got rid of bad ones. More recently, the IOFC played a prominent role in the Dallas Seavey doping scandal - it was the IOFC that pushed the ITC to reveal Dallas' identity in response to rumors that a finisher's dogs had tested positive. The ITC, knowing that they couldn't PROVE that Dallas had administered banned drugs to his dogs and that the rules (at that time) required that proof in order to take action against him, was inclined to just address the issue behind the scenes. In the end, nobody came out a winner in that debacle, so it wouldn't surprise me if the IOFC was a bit gun-shy about getting into a battle with the ITC.
The place to make the change, in my opinion, is in the Rules committee and the time to do it is before the deadline to withdraw and get a full refund of the entry fee. The Rules committee has plenty of musher representation, so that point of view will be adequately represented, as will the point of view of the folks that would be tasked with enforcing whatever rules are put into place (i.e., the judges and the race marshal). But there needs to be the will to do something and the energy to actually do it.