YOUR AD HERE »

At Redstone’s annual races, competitors are born to run

Amanda Holt MillerPost Independent Staff
Post Independent/Kelley Cox Sled dogs, mushers and spectators gathered in Redstone for the annual sled dog races over the weekend. See next Sunday's Panorama for more photos.
ALL |

A different breed of athlete wowed crowds just down the road from the X Games this weekend.Visitors to the 22nd annual Sled Dog Race in Redstone were greeted with exuberant barks and wild howling from a collection of competitors so eager to hit the trail that they were practically jumping out of their skin.”These dogs are born to pull,” said Lise Sansom from Carbondale as her dogs jumped at the ends of their short chains on the sides of her truck. “Six of them could pull that pickup.”All of the dogs at the pure-breed and mixed-breed race were wired and toned athletes. Twenty-eight teams competed in four-dog (four-mile), six-dog (five-mile) and skijoring (skier pulled by one or two dogs) races. There were also three-dog sportsman’s races for young mushers, as sled dog racers are known.”We’re trying to retire out of it,” Sansom said. “But the dogs will never retire. We’ve had some until they were 17, 20 years old just because they’re in such good shape. They’re really athletes.”Sansom has been a musher for more than 20 years and used to have a kennel of almost 50 Seppala Siberian huskies.She chose to race Seppalas because they are particularly well-known for their speed and strength.”Some people think they look small for sled dogs, but they’re very strong,” Sansom said.Seppalas are descendants of the Siberian huskies Leonard Seppala, a Norwegian, took with him to Alaska during the early 1900s. And they’re typically only bred with other Seppalas.

“Mushers who own Seppalas keep in contact with each other,” Sansom said.But the race at Redstone drew a diverse group of athlete dogs. At the end of the day Saturday, 16-year-old Katie Harris was in first place for the four-dog race with her German short-hair mixed-breed dogs. She was one of the only racers who wasn’t pulled by dogs in the Huskie family. John Perry, Katie’s neighbor in Iliff, Colo., is a sled dog champion and introduced her to the sport six years ago. Harris now has 15 of the German short-hair dogs Perry started her out with.Harris’ dogs don’t have the same uniform look as some of the other teams, but they’re certainly fast and strong.”A lot of people now are breeding their Alaskans with the fastest of the German short-hairs,” said Jesse Miltier from Palisade, who has 18 pure-bred Siberian huskies and three Alaskan huskies.The difference between a Siberian and an Alaskan, Miltier said, is that an Alaskan “is a mix of whatever runs the fastest.”redstone: see page 5redstone: from page 1

Miltier bought his first sled dog at a pet store before he even thought about racing. He eased into the sport and eventually found himself traveling all over the country from his home in Virginia. He moved to Palisade about four years ago for the snow and hasn’t traveled nearly as far since then.”I realized after a while that the dogs you buy in the pet store are pets,” Miltier said. “And race dogs are race dogs.”Miltier keeps his 21 dogs in an outdoor colony peppered with dog houses, which he says is a good way to care for the animals because they are social creatures and the arrangement allows them to wonder freely and socialize with each other.With 21 dogs, Miltier has choices when it comes time to pick his team. Torbruk, 11, is Miltier’s oldest dog.”But he’s been leading since he was really young,” Miltier said. Torbruk leads Miltier’s four-dog team. Sweetie just turned 1 year old in mid-January and already has the honor of leading Miltier’s six-dog team.”She’s showing a lot of potential,” Miltier said. “It usually takes until they’re about 3 years old for them to reach their potential, but she’s there.”Sweetie did lose the trail on a hairpin turn Saturday and ended up in the soft snow around the edges of the trail, costing Miltier a few precious seconds.”There are no reins,” Sansom said. “So you have to train them to listen to you.”



Most mushers use horse lingo when they’re driving. “Gee” for right and “Haw” for left. Some say “whoa” for stop.”You can’t get them to stop,” Sansom said. “With the brake and the snow pick, you might get them to hold for 10 seconds. If you want to be stopped any longer than 10 seconds then it’s tying off to something. Only if you’re going on really long runs do you stop. I doubt any of the teams here are trained to stop.”Harris fell off of her sled and couldn’t catch up with her team, which ran about 30 miles per hour.”They just follow the trail in,” Harris said. “It’s a real light load for them. You walk back or, if you’re lucky, someone is out there to give you a ride.”Sansom said the dogs usually know their car and go right to it when the race is finished.Mushers like Harris, Miltier and Sansom said they train their dogs to pull four-wheelers on dry ground and even in desert sands when there’s no snow.”It’s in their breeding,” Sansom said. “It’s like ‘stick’ is the only word a Labrador retriever knows. These dogs pull.”Contact Amanda Holt Miller: 625-3245, ext. 103ahmiller@postindependent.com


Support Local Journalism

Support Local Journalism

Readers around Glenwood Springs and Garfield County make the Post Independent’s work possible. Your financial contribution supports our efforts to deliver quality, locally relevant journalism.

Now more than ever, your support is critical to help us keep our community informed about the evolving coronavirus pandemic and the impact it is having locally. Every contribution, however large or small, will make a difference.

Each donation will be used exclusively for the development and creation of increased news coverage.