by elsietee » Thu Mar 16, 2017 9:39 pm
First of all - Craig Meldred likes to write contentious things, so I'm surprised he's not roasting the mushers in question the way he did Brent during the Quest. This article is pretty mild for Craig.
I'd agree with the concept that "speed kills" - it works the same way in the horse endurance world. In the last few years, the UAE decided to take up "endurance racing" (which is actually long-distance flat-track racing on groomed sand trails - reaching speeds of 25 mph for 100 miles - complete with vehicles/crews hazing horses to continue, horses dropping dead of exhaustion and stress fractures. It's horrendous and the rest of the horse endurance world are trying to distance themselves from these atrocities as fast as they can).
As far as the dogs dying in this particular race - Seth's died just outside Galena (after a long flat stretch of trail), Kat's died just outside Koyuk (also a long flat stretch of trail), while Roger's died before Unk (don't know that trail, but thought it was a bit less monotonous?).
(During horse events, when the terrain is flat and monotonous, I have to be careful not to just keep going "because we can". Usually the trail has hills, or twists, or rocky/technical sections, etc, which enforce a continuous speed-up-slow-down type pace - you're not just going and going. If you do get on such a trail, you have to remember to walk now and again, just to give the horse a break (or sometimes canter, to get him to use different muscle sets and get things flowing again internally). )
It's also interesting that all three dogs died towards the end of a long run, so you have to assume that it's exercise induced, rather than just "something".
Usually mushers comment that slower is better for the dogs in terms of injuries - Jessie said her dogs went slow and careful between Huslia and Koyukuk and that she felt that was helpful. Dallas deliberately slowed his down so they didn't injure themselves speeding along. But they are talking specifically about biomechanical (lameness) injuries, rather than "metabolic" ones.
(also of note, horses are much more delicate, metabolically. Endurance riders are obsessive about them EDPP - eating, drinking, pooping, peeing - and the attitude of the eating/drinking, the colour of the pee, and consistency of the poop. When they are working hard, all the blood shifts to their muscles and away from their guts (which are badly designed and fail often) - if you have a horse who's gut shuts down because of this, you can be in a world of hurt. You also have to watch for tying up (which I think also affects dogs) and resulting kidney damage. So it's a constant balancing act of going down the trail as fast as you safely can, while making sure that the horse is functioning correctly metabolically.)
And then you have Mitch and Nic both going gang-busters - and not getting injuries or dogs dropping... and I don't believe that's purely because "they trained better". Sh*t happens, and some are just luckier than others.
Of interest to me: I'd hazard to guess that Iditarod attracts a fair amount of "one and done" type mushers - people wanting to cross it off their bucket list - who get the bare necessity of qualifiers to get out there and do it. As a result, you usually get an above-average number of people scratching at the back, but thankfully it doesn't seem to affect the dogs. Why these mushers don't suffer from dog problems is anyone's guess - possibly their own limitations as far as needing to rest more than the dogs do?
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elsietee AT ponyhill DOT org
Repotted english person in the Sierra foothills, CA
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