Skis, plus dogs, makes for a winning combination

WASILLA — In only her second year of competitive skijoring, one Wasilla woman is used to leading a pack of racers often less than half her age.

Rebecca Knight started skiing when she was 7, adding the Nordic discipline in high school. She moved north in the late 1980s after falling in love with the Alaska winters.

Knight struck up a friendship with Joe Redington, co-founder of the Iditarod Sled Dog Race. In mushing, she saw the perfect way to combine her need for winter recreation with her passion for dogs.

For 20 years, Knight ran a kennel of about a dozen dogs that didn’t make the Iditarod team cut.

“For me, I really wanted a recreational team and to provide a home for these dogs, a place where they could live out the rest of their lives,” Knight said. “I didn’t necessarily feel the need to race.”

That changed last winter when Knight, now 48, saw that half-century mark approaching. She wanted to get back into Nordic skiing, and skijoring was the perfect match between dogs and skiing.

“I enjoyed mushing, but for me (skijoring) feels a little more balanced because I am physically exerting myself,” Knight said.

Knight knew of a sprint-race musher wanting to sell a few dogs. This is where she found Gypsy, a half German short-haired pointer and half Alaskan husky. Gypsy was sired by Oslo Ozzie, Knight said, the sled dog who is said to have never lost a race.

Knight and Gypsy ran as a one-dog, one-skier team last year, but she was limited in the races she could enter because she was still sharing Gypsy with the musher.

“I knew I really needed two dogs of my own,” Knight said.

She eventually purchased Gypsy outright and heard of another sprint musher from Fairbanks looking to unload a few dogs. By the time Knight made it up there, there was only one dog left. But rather than being the dregs of the litter, Knight said she couldn’t have asked for a better dog.

Clyde is an 18-month-old mix of three quarters German short-hair and one quarter Alaskan husky. Knight started working with him last fall, hooking his harness to her bicycle before the snow fell. She said she knew quickly what a find Clyde was.

Heading into the 2009-2010 season with what she called the perfect combination of heart and soul in Gypsy and youthful sprit in Clyde, Knight knew she could have a good race season. However, this put the pressure back on Knight.

“I really wanted to live up to my dogs’ athletic ability. I wanted to bring it up on the skiing end of it,” Knight said.

So she started training with the ex-coach of the Polish national Nordic ski team in Anchorage, working on technique and stamina. She had reconstructive surgery on her knee 12 years ago, and the hill training really built her strength, she said.

This year, Knight’s combination of dogs and training paid off. She said she won the Su Valley Championship, the Chugiak Classic, the Kincaid Classic, the Willow Winter Carnival and took second in the Montana Creek Championship. Last weekend, she took home the prize for first place in the Gold Run race in Fairbanks and has her eye on the Limited North American Championship in March.

Keep in mind the races are typically not broken up between men and women, and there are never any age brackets. Knight said.

While she is certainly not the oldest racer on the trail, she is no young gun either. In races like the Gold Run and Kincaid Classic, she is competing against racers in their 20s and 30s.

Despite her success, Knight never loses sight of her limitations. She said she plans to retire after the end of next year, and she doesn’t know how long the 8 1/2-year-old Gypsy will continue to race.

“Sometimes, I say I wish Gypsy was 2 and I was 25,” Knight said. “But for now, I take it one race at a time. … We are enjoying it while it lasts.”

Contact Todd L. Disher at todd.disher@frontiersman.com or 352-2252.