Brooks disqualified from Iditarod

By CRAIG MEDRED
Anchorage Daily News

Published: March 18, 2007
Last Modified: March 19, 2007 at 12:06 AM

A three-judge panel of Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race officials has voted to disqualify 15th-place finisher Ramy Brooks from Healy.

Witnesses to Brooks behavior last week in the tiny village of Golovin, about 95 miles from Nome, "provided information to race officials detailing abusive actions by Brooks to his dog team,'' an Iditarod press release said.

"There were some people there who were pretty upset about it,'' race marshal Mark Nordman said Sunday.

Last week, Brooks' business manager had revealed the musher "spanked'' a dog in Golovin, but Nordman said there was more to it than that.

Apparently, Nordman said, Brooks' tired dog team didn't want to go through the village and laid down on a patch of ice. Brooks then grabbed a piece of lath -- a piece of wood about 1 1/2-inches wide and 1/4-inch thick -- and proceeded to the front of the team smacking dogs as he went.

"He just lost his cool,'' Nordman said. "He just lost his temper.''

Not only was the tactic unsightly, it was ineffective.

"If a dog team doesn't want to go,'' Nordman said, "you can't make them go.''

Whether being spanked hurt any of the dogs is open to debate, according to veterinarians. Thickly furred dogs have a higher tolerance for being spanked than children, they noted.

Still, Nordman said, he and a panel of judges who met to discuss the incident unamiously agreed Brooks' behavior was wrong, and something had to be done.

"He's accepting it,'' Nordman added. "He says, 'I made a poor choice. That's not who I am.' He feels bad for his family."

Brooks is part of one of the best-known families in Alaska dog mushing. His mother is Roxy Wright, the first woman to win the Anchorage Fur Rendezvous World Championship Sled Dog Race in Anchorage and the former leader of a team that dominated Alaska sprint mushing for years. His grandfather is Gareth Wright from Fairbanks, who is not only a former Rondy winner but a pioneer in the breeding and development of Alaska racing dogs.

Brooks, according to the Iditarod press release, has fully "acknowledged 'spanking' the dogs in his team with trail-marking lath."

Independent witnesses in Golovin could not be reached. The school principal there said she didn't see the incident, and added that many villagers had gone to Nome for Iditarod celebrations.

On Sunday night, Nome hosts the Iditarod banquet, one of the biggest winter events of the year in northwest Alaska.

Brooks was reportedly in Nome, but could not be reached for comment. It has been a traumatic few days for him. First came the "abusive actions" in Golovin. Then, about 70 miles farther along the trail, a young female dog named Kate died in Brooks' team. Iditarod officials said Sunday that the death of that dog does not appear to be in any way related to what happened in Golovin.

Nordman said Kate was in the team when the spanking took place, but no one knows for sure if she was hit. Even if she was, he added, veterinarians who did a necropsy in Nome could find no evidence the dog had been in any way abused. They are still, in fact, trying to determine why she died.

Not only that, Nordman added, a long time passed between the incident in Golovin and Kate's death.

Brooks and Kate proceeded several hours from Golovin to White Mountain, where all teams do a mandatory eight-hour rest. Afterwards, they started from White Mountain to Safety, a run of about 55 miles. Brooks reported it wasn't until the team was almost to Safety that Kate unexpectedly dropped.

He reportedly stopped the team, rushed to her side and tried to revive her -- but was unsuccessful.

After the death of Kate, Brooks proceeded to the Safety checkpoint, where friends and Iditarod officials agree he wanted to drop out of the race. A veterinarian and race staffers there, however, talked him out of it. They also told him to proceed to Nome with the body of Kate in his sled.

That was a technical violation of Iditarod rules requring a musher to wait for a judge to rule on why the dog died, but Nordman said that given the circumstances he chose to ignore the rule. He did, however, block Brooks' status as an official finisher until after an investigation into the dog's death was complete.

Other teams finished the race while that investigation was under way, and by the time the investigation was complete, Brooks' finishing position had fallen from 11th to 15th.

That was not a penalty but standard procedure in the event of a dog death, the Iditarod said.

Then came the investigation into the Golovin incident. Nordman noted that had Brooks broken any rule other than the one strictly prohibiting dog abuse, judges might have had the option to give him a warning, a fine or a time penalty. But the rules are very strict about mistreating dogs.

Once the judges decide that has happened, Nordman said, the only penalty allowed is disqualification.

"The chief veterinarian will be consulted in all cases involving cruel or inhumane treatment,'' the rule says. "The musher will be given the opportunity to present his case to each member of the panel prior to the decision. Disqualifed and withdrawn teams must leave the trail or forfeit the right to enter future Iditarods.''

The last time a musher was disqualified for striking a dog was in 1990 when former champion Jerry Riley from Nenana hit a dog with a steel snowhook and injured it. Riley said he was trying to break up a dog fight and accidentally hit the dog with a strong blow.

Judges, citing alleged mistreatment of dogs by Riley in the past, refused to believe him and banned him from the race for life. Ten years later, however, the ban was lifted, and in the 2001 Iditarod, Riley, by then 64 years old, finished eighth -- one of the best finishes ever by a musher over 60.

Rookie Dave Branholm was disqualified in 1993 for losing a dog between Rohn and Nikolai.

Cases of mushers being disqualifed for mistreating dogs in the Iditarod have been relatively rare. Probably the worst of them came in 1983 when Wes Atherton shot a dog. The animal had broken its leg early in the race. Atherton had loaded it in his sled and tried to take it back to the checkpoint he'd just left, but he said the dog was suffering so badly he couldn't bear to watch. So he shot it.

Atherton thought that was a humanitarian act. Other mushers were horrified. Atherton, a rookie, never attempted another Iditarod.

With Brooks' disqualification, he loses any prize money he might have earned along with his position in the race.

Nordman said he doubts Brooks, a two-time runner-up, will be censured from future Iditarods. Brooks, he said, seems sincerely upset and remorseful about what he did. And, Nordman added, Brooks has no history of abusing dogs.

"You get worked up,'' Nordman said, and sometime do foolish things.

With Brooks' removal, Canadian Hans Gatt, a former winner of the Yukon Quest International Sled Dog Race, becomes the official 15th fnisher, and everyone behind him moves up in the finishing order.

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