IFSS World Championship!

So.... In a few words - the winter season 2010/2011 has been fantastic! After running in two qualifying sprint races with a line-up of Phoebe, Niklas, Sven and Burka - off we went to the IFSS World Championship! Conveniently this year, it was held here in Norway, at the Hamar Dogsledding Arena.  Actually, it was a Championship in three parts - first the Femundløpet was the first ever official Long Distance Wrld.Ch. event in IFSS history! Next out was the Middle Distance and Sprint events at Hamar - which is where we competed... (Third session was Nordic and Sprint here in Oslo at the Holmenkollen ski arena. The Hamar racing was a chance to test the dogs in the 4-dogs Siberian Husky class (lumped into the "Nordic Breed" category) - 8 km * 3 days!  I can sum it up by saying - YEAH! 7th place out of 13 teams - best Norwegian team :-) Despite having two new dogs (Niklas and Sven came in December), one dog that was almost dead 9 months earlier (Burka had an immune reaction that made her lose all her red blood cells) - Phoebe was the only "known" entity of the team.. Brothers Niklas and Sven are hard-driving - Niklas showing more confidence, but Sven with a seemingly endless supply of "go-juice"! Of course, Phoebe is screaming to go and certainly a natural leader, but I felt it best to have the girls and boys teamed up - what a team! Gooooooood dogs...
I am VERY happy with a 7th place in the World Championship in the very first race season....! Still need one more dog to make a good 4-dog team, since Burka is not so hard-driving or long-legged; she is an extremely competent MD dog - all her siblings ran on Tore Hunskår's World Championship MD team :-) She is treal hero on my race team, but unfortunately not be used in breeding... Not so, Phoebe! She will be bred to Niklas this summer if everything goes to plan - 0% inbreeding and combining two proven Sprint lines will be interesting.....! Now time to enjoy the spring and coming summer...

Racing season...

The autumn and early winter has already passed, and I thought to update you on the racing season!
Since the summer we have had a mixed bag of dogs - one sick, one old, one puppy, and one eager healthy, crazy dog. Racing has therefore natually been limited to, well....limited events?!  During the autumn I participated in a 2*3km race with one dog (Phoebe) and bike.  This was really fun, so when I had the opportunity, I joined a dryland race on the Drammen Horseracing Circuit (Travbane):

Phoebe ran against the Norwegian (and European) elite Nordic disclipline dogs - i.e. her competitors were 40kg Vorsteh dogs and the guys on the bikes were top trained (since they ski with the dog in winter)... We had a GREAT race and after 1.6km only came in 30 seconds behind!  Had I been in shape I am sure we would have done better....! Good dog!

Last weekend we went to the Hamar Dog Musher Festival ( Hundekjørefestival) where we entered the sprint four-dog Nordic Breed class - the distance should have been 8km but due to prepping of trails for the upcoming World Championship, the circuit was 6.7km... In front, Phoebe and Sven, wheel dogs were Burka and Niklas. It was a miracle that we started the race - 6 months ago, Burka was almost dead, and she has not recovered fully - she is still thin and in need of conditioning.... However, there is nothing wrong with her enthusiasm, and she has a tendency to "dance around" with eager anticipation - the result of which was less than good!  5 seconds before the start, she had managed to "jump out" of her too-large harness..! With full stress adrenaline and nervouseness I tried to fix it... When we got away 1min 45 s after my race had started, it was still not correct... Anyway - we run along and were caught halfway by next team run by a friend.  She passes us, and our speed picks up as we trail her at a distance - result? Total tangle of Burka's harness - I stop twice and anchor up to fix it before it is finally done.. Day 1 we were therefore last, even if the dogs ran very well! Technical problems - "that's racing"!  Day 2 went like dream in comparison - borrowed harness and no tangles - we passed two teams on the trails - the Greenland dogs, no problem, but the Siberians of a German musher behaved like "mini crocodiles"... Ah well - we made good time - all in all a very good weekend!  HAPPY TRAILS!