Martin Buser leading Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race
The Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race had a new leader Tuesday morning, with Martin Buser the first musher to reach the Nikolai checkpoint.
Four minutes behind Buser was Robert Bundtzen, with Hugh Neff arriving one minute after that. Ray Redington Jr. checked in fourth, and Lance Mackey arrived fifth, 35 minutes after Buser.
Mackey, the defending and four-time consecutive champion, has dropped four of his 16-dog team, including the 2010 Golden Harness winner, Maple, who led Mackey's team to victory last year.
"I'm not going to get discouraged at this point, but it doesn’t look too promising at this time," Mackey told the Anchorage Daily News as he piled straw among his team at the Nikolai checkpoint, where he dropped three of his dogs -- Jester, Pimp (who Mackey described as "one of my veteran superstars") and Lippy -- that he said weren't pulling or eating well and seemed sore.
"They're not right, and I'm not one to jeopardize the future of my dogs just for my own personal satisfaction," he said.
"Last year at this time, I kind of had some symptoms and issues too, and it turned out all right," said the 40-year-old musher from Fairbanks, Alaska.
"I'm not taking myself out of it yet. We're just going to kind of put ourselves in defense mode and try to get these 12 dogs to Nome as healthy and happy as possible," he said. "If it puts me there first, great, if it put me there 21st, well, that's the way it is, right?"
"You can't win them all. ... I'm damn sure going to try, but not at the expense of my team," he added.
-- Kelly Burgess
twitter.com/latimesoutposts
Photo: An Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race musher crosses the taiga forest between the Skwentna and Finger Lake checkpoints on Monday. Credit: Bob Hallinen / Anchorage Daily News / Associated Press
It's shaping up to be an interesting race! I would like to see Lance Mackey win for the fifth time but it would also be great to see Martin Buser win again. And of course we are still very early in the race at this point and many things could change before the Iditarod ends.
I'm very glad to hear that Martin Buser's dogs are okay. It's probably a good thing that he routinely takes them on free-runs (off-leash) as part of his training.
Was very sorry to see that Zoya DeNure scratched in Rainy Pass. That's too bad - I like her a lot.
Anyway, thanks for covering the Iditarod again this year!
Alice
Posted by: Wolf Moon | March 09, 2011 at 05:03 AM
today is also my birthday, and what i would like for my b-day is lance to win and his dogs be safe and to be happy
Posted by: jill golden | March 09, 2011 at 04:54 AM
our class is doing something for the iditarod. we pick a musher to rute for. am in fourth grade and i picked lance mackey,so did another glassmate.The reason i picked lance because he won four times in a row and he mushed since birth but the real reason is he loves his dogs am not saying the other musher don't but he looked like he would put his dogs first.go lance you can make it with 12 dogs.
Posted by: jill golden | March 09, 2011 at 04:52 AM
Celine is in heat and created a ruckus when his team came upon Newton Marshall outside of Rainy Pass. The dogs jumped on Celine. Buser said, "To save her, I turned everybody loose. Or a lot of them loose.' Celine got scared and ran off and other dogs followed her. All of these dogs would be roaming around the unforgiving wilderness with Buser out looking for them if Ken Anderson hadn't brought three of them to the checkpoint and if two hadn't come in on their own. FOR MORE FACTS, go to the Sled Dog Action Coalition website, http://www.helpsleddogs.org.
Posted by: Margery Glickman | March 08, 2011 at 03:46 PM