Iditarod rules need rewrite

The board of directors of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race needs to rethink its policy that penalizes mushers for putting their dogs into shelter during the race.

Granted, the rule is designed to prevent mushers from getting unfair advantages over their competitors. And that is a good thing, but the racers should if anything be rewarded for taking good care of their dogs.

The two top finishers in this year’s women’s race, Michelle Phillips of the Yukon Territory and Mille Porsild of Denmark, had their finishing positions downgraded because they took their dogs into a cabin during a fierce winter storm.

Phillips was dropped from 17th position to 18th and Porsild was moved back from 14th to 17th. The switch cost Phillips $1,000 in prize money and Porsild lost a whopping $3,450.

The penalties were appropriate under the existing rules, but the rules should be written to encourage proper care of the dogs and not the reverse, as they sometimes do at present.

Dogs in the big race are often under great stress and deal with conditions that can sometimes be life-threatening, though Iditarod officials do go to great lengths to encourage proper team care.

The obvious problem is that teams able to take shelter have an advantage over those that are not near shelter facilities when fierce weather strikes. But the Iditarod is a thousand-mile race and the luck of the draw and unpredictable weather are part of its challenge. Within limitations such rules would seem not difficult to draft. They should encourage mushers to take advantage of shelter opportunities found along the trail when they are needed.

Obviously the mushers should not be able to arrange in advance for their dogs to be sheltered along the way or cared for by people waiting along the trail for them. But when a blizzard or windstorm strikes during a race, the mushers should be encouraged to do whatever they can to protect their teams. And that includes taking them indoors and out of the elements if and when that is possible.

I say these things without ever having personal experience with dog mushing and not being certain how easy or difficult it would be to make advance arrangements for dog care and shelter. So that is a caveat on how seriously you should take my comments here.

One possibility to avoid such problems might be to position race officials at each of the possible stops along the way. There may be more than could be managed in that fashion but the maps seem to indicate there are something like a dozen or perhaps even two. And granted in a thousand-mile race there are likely to be many more possible shelter places than would show up on such a map.

But the important thing is that good dog care is vital to the race and measures to assure it would send an important message to all who participate — those who follow the race, the spectators and its broad audience in all parts of the world.

The dogs of the Iditarod are very special creatures whose well-being is a concern of all those who pay attention to it. The race officials might want to take a new look at the rules, how they are implemented and their impact on the four-legged racers that make it possible.

Tom Brennan is an Anchorage columnist and author of six books. He was a reporter/columnist for The Anchorage Times and an editor and columnist at The Voice of The Times.