The Iditarod board of directors could've handed down a far sterner punishment than the two-year ban it gave Brooks on Friday after learning the Healy musher's abuse of his dogs during this year's race was worse than first believed.

Brooks is lucky, because he could have gotten a five-year ban. He could have gotten a 10-year ban. He could have gotten a lifetime ban.

The Iditarod could have justified a harsher sanction based on what Brooks himself admitted doing in Golovin while trying to rouse his dogs when some refused to run. Never mind that five eyewitnesses tell a more disturbing story.

After initially saying he "spanked" a couple of dogs, Brooks last month told an investigator he hit all 10 of his dogs multiple times.

He started by shaking team dogs Sergei and Vickars, who had sat down on a stretch of glare ice and wouldn't get up. Then he grabbed and shook Nigel, a female who, before Sergei and Vickars sat down, had slowed to pee and caused the whole team to stop.

With Sergei and Vickars still balking and the team unable to get traction on the ice, Brooks grabbed a thin wooden trail marker called a lath and used it to hit the two stubborn dogs.

He returned to the sled and ordered the dogs to go. They wouldn't. He left the sled, walked the length of the gang line and hit each dog three or four times with the lath.

Then he tried to act as lead dog and pull the team, and still it wouldn't move. So he made another trip down the gang line and gave each dog three or four more swats with the lath.

This time the dogs traveled about 200 feet with Brooks running alongside. The musher returned to the sled and gave the go command. The team refused. And again Brooks walked the gang line, and again he hit each dog three or four times.

Ten dogs. Three trips down the gang line. Three or four whacks for each dog each time.

In a span of about 15 minutes, Brooks hit his dogs 100 or more times.

A two-year ban? Brooks is lucky.

None of this is in dispute. It's the story Brooks told investigator Bob Stewart, and Iditarod officials said Brooks confirmed the account during a closed-door executive board meeting Friday.

Stewart interviewed five people -- three adults and two children, all residents of the village -- who said they saw Brooks kick the dogs, hit the dogs with his hands, or both.

The witness accounts in Stewart's 21-page report are every bit as credible as the musher's. Plus they come in bunches. This is not a "he said/she said" dispute. It is "he said/they said."

Stewart's report doesn't reach a conclusion; the lawyer said his job was to interview Brooks and the witnesses and present their contradictory accounts to the board.

Iditarod executive director Stan Hooley said the board didn't conclude whether Brooks kicked his dogs or hit them with anything other than the lath. "Everyone's telling the truth as they perceive it," he said.

But because Brooks admitted to Stewart and later to the board that he repeatedly smacked his team with the lath, the board decided a stiffer punishment was warranted.

Brooks, 36, is a 12-time race finisher and two-time runner-up with no history of abuse. He comes from one of mushing's royal families and is one of the race's most popular mushers.

While those factors may have worked in Brooks' favor, something else worked against it: The need to protect the Iditarod's image and prove it will not tolerate dog abuse.

Cathy Brooks, who spoke for her husband Friday, said she's never seen Brooks abuse his dogs. She would not directly say whether she has seen him hit his dogs. Asked if there's a difference between hitting a dog and abusing a dog, she said that was a matter for the Iditarod board to decide.

Thankfully, the board doesn't see a difference. Nor do most people, whether they're mushers with big kennels, matrons with lap dogs, or villagers along the Iditarod Trail.

Mushers who think otherwise should consider themselves forewarned: Even in remote Alaska, people are watching. And some of them might have camera phones or video cameras.

If any of the witnesses in Golovin had been so equipped, Brooks' meltdown would have circled the globe on YouTube and the world would have shuddered at the sight of a man delivering 100 whacks to 10 dogs. A two-year ban would be out of the question.

Yes, Ramy Brooks got lucky.

Beth Bragg's opinion column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Her e-mail address is bbragg@adn.com.