Four-time Iditarod champion Lance Mackey featured on 'Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel'

Like Sarah Palin, four-time Iditarod winner Lance Mackey is probably one of the most-recognized names and faces in his home state of Alaska. Get outside the 49th state, however, and the 39-year-old musher is likely little-known.

Mackey is the modern-day champion of the 1,100-plus mile Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, enduring days of sub-zero temperatures, long hours of darkness and little sleep to ride into the record books this year as the only musher to win the "last great race on Earth" four consecutive times (he is also the only musher to win the Yukon Quest, another challenging 1,000 mile sled dog race, four times, doing so in consecutive years).

Now, others will have the opportunity to learn a little about Mackey, who will be featured in one of the segment's on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, debuting at 10 p.m.Tuesday on HBO. 

Correspondent Jon Frankel traveled to Alaska to speak with Mackey, visiting him at home where he  lives with his family (which includes a pack of 12 house dogs that are rescued canines), and runs his sled dog facility, Comeback Kennel.

"I'm addicted to dogs, and not just sled dogs.  I love 'em all.  All the dogs I got runnin' around my house are -- are pretty much, you know rescue dogs," Mackey told Frankel. "Nobody else give 'em a chance or -- or the time of day.  And -- and I felt that was kinda me as well.  And -- and -- and because of it, I think the relationship I have with my dogs today is -- is second to none." 

Mackey delves into his relationship with his father, Dick, who in 1978 won the Iditarod by one second. He also discusses his youth, when he seemed lost in a vortex of drug and alcohol abuse, as well as his battle with throat cancer, which he wasn't expected to survive.

The segment focused more on Mackey's past rather than the present, which I would have liked to have heard more about -- his family life with wife Tonya and their three children, his work tutoring other mushers, and what he does when not training for races -- but I still found it interesting. Perhaps Mackey wanted it that way though, wishing to remain a bit mysterious, like some of the Alaskan tundra he crosses during the iconic race.

The episode will re-air at 2:10 a.m. Wednesday as well as on May 20, 23, 25, 29 and 31.

-- Kelly Burgess

Photo: Lance Mackey shares a private moment with Rev, one of his sled dogs, during the 2010 Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Credit: Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News / Associated Press

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Comments

[Lorene]

Lance Mackey is AMAZING!! Four time winner of the iditarod is something for the ages. Believe me folks this young man KNOWS his dogs and loves them completely. I'm a big animal lover, watching him win the 2008 Iditarod was wonderful. This man and his super-star dogs will go down in history!!!
Congratulations Lance!!!!!!!!!!
Lorene

[Wolf Moon]

I just watched the Lance Mackey segement from "Real Sports." VERY good. Very interesting history information, as well as a few things I did not realize. The episode had great footage of Mackey interacting with his dogs during races as well as in their home kennel environment.

In reference to the above comment on Lance Mackey's dogs and how they are kept...I just received the May/June 2010 issue of "Mushing" magazine and it includes a great interview with Mackey on page 7. Talking about some of his superstar dogs, he says, and I quote:

"Tomorrow I am going to turn he [Zorro] and Larry, Foster, Risban, Boy and Patel loose in the lot. They all brought me to where I am today so they'll become house dogs. They deserve a life of luxury after all we've been through together."

This dog-lover agrees! Three cheers!

Alice

[Lucy Shelton]

The Iditarod sled dog race is a once-a-year, so-called “sporting” event that routinely kills young, healthy dogs and it has to stop. Six dogs died last year, five others died in another recent year. Although no dogs died this year, the average number of dog deaths a year is 3.8. There are laws in at least 38 states against "over-driving" and "over-working" animals, which is exactly what the Iditarod does.

These dogs are among the best-conditioned dogs in the world due to their training year-round, yet, of the 1136 dogs who started, 586 dogs did not finish (330 belonging to the mushers who finished, and 256 from the 16 mushers who scratched). Lance Mackey dropped 5 dogs (he dropped 5 in this year’s Quest also). Seven mushers finished with only half (8) of their dogs, four mushers with only 7, and one musher finished with only 6 dogs. During the last 8 years less than half of the dogs made it to the finish line. This clearly proves how severe the race is for them.

So many dropped dogs, due to exhaustion, injuries, illnesses, and not wanting to go, should indicate to sensible people that this race is too hard on the dogs and they’re pushed beyond their limits.

When they are not racing or training the dogs are kept tethered - every dog short-chained to its own small dog house. Click on Mackey’s Comeback Kennels in the article, go to Mackey Dogs and you’ll see that all the dogs are on chains and note their small houses. This is considered inhumane and is illegal in many communities.

These magnificent dogs are essentially treated like machines - little engines that drive the sled and musher, which is their only purpose in life. Most of the work is done by the dogs, yet the mushers (who are portrayed as if they were Olympic athletes, or heroes) get the glory and the money at the detriment of the dogs. Unfortunately for the dogs they are so loyal that they will run to exhaustion.

I cannot believe that the mushers truly love their dogs, because racing them subjects the dogs to the possibility of exhaustion, injuries, illnesses, and death.

[Jennifer]

i hope bryant asks him how many dogs have died during the iditarod over the past ten years or so...while i've nothing against dog-sledding as an activity, i do not favor it in competitions (as human greed and pride often take over at the animals' expense)....same thing with horse-racing, etc...lots of abuse behind the scenes, folks

[Wolf Moon]

Great piece. I don't have cable so I missed seeing the show - thanks for posting this report on it! It's good to see the sport of mushing getting this kind of coverage. Mushers and their sled dog teams deserve recognition outside of Alaska. I hope the show spent some time focusing on Lance Mackey's dogs, since they are the real superstars of the Iditarod and the real focus of mushers' day-to-day life. You seriously have to love dogs to do this! Great picture of Mackey and Rev - it really captures the musher/dog bond, and nicely offsets the negative comments.

I am unsurprised to see the anti-sled dog racing comments above, as I have come to expect them whenever an article that portrays mushing in a positive light is posted. I have been deeply involved in the world of mushing for years now and I spent the past two years working full-time at an Iditarod kennel. What I have seen and experienced is at odds with what the Sled Dog Action Coalition (helpsleddogs) describes. Sure, bad things HAVE happened, but not with the regularity and frequency that Margery Glickman's comment implies. But enough about that here. To read more detailed responses to commom claims made against sled dog racing, please visit http://sleddoggin.com/blogs/wolfmoonsleddog/2010/03/16/peta-sled-dog-racing-warning-may-contain-sarcasm/

Sincerely,

Alice White

[Margery Glickman]

If Lance Mackey genuinely cared about his dogs, he wouldn't put them at terrible risk by racing them in the Iditarod. Mackey's dog "Wolf" died in the 2004 Iditarod when he regurgitated food and choked on it. What happens to dogs during the race includes death, paralysis, frostbite (where it hurts the most!), bleeding ulcers, bloody diarrhea, lung damage, pneumonia, ruptured discs, viral diseases, broken bones, torn muscles and tendons and sprains. At least 142 dogs have died in the race, including two dogs on a doctor's team who froze to death in the 2009 Iditarod. FOR MORE FACTS GO TO WEBSITE: HELPSLEDDOGS.ORG