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| 28th
year of Alaska's great race
|
| 01/01/00 HUNTINGON RULED MUSHING IN THE '70S By Beth Bragg Daily News Executive Sports Editor To appreciate what Carl Huntington pulled off in the 1970s, consider the improbability of a runner winning the 100 meters at one Olympics and the marathon at another. The Athabaskan musher from Galena became the king of sprint mushing in 1973 by winning the Fur Rendezvous World Championship. One year later, he became the king of distance mushing by winning the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Not a single musher has duplicated Huntington's feat. ''I was young, I had a lot of energy, and I had a good sponsor,'' Huntington said by way of explanation. But there's another reason. It's the dogs. Or, to be more precise, it's the sprint dogs. A sprint musher first and foremost, Huntington twice entered the Iditarod ''because it was there.'' When talk turns to his Fur Rondy-Iditarod double the conversation invariably gravitates toward the common denominator in his dissimilar championships: the village-raised sprint dogs that demonstrated 25 years ago, and continue to demonstrate today, that they are good in the long haul, too. Huntington, 53, likes telling the story about a sprint dog from Huslia who became a leader on two of Jeff King's championship Iditarod teams. And he likes getting the opportunity to give credit to sprint mushing for opening the door for distance mushing, which enjoys the popularity and profile today that sprint mushing enjoyed in Huntington's heyday. ''The dogs that run in the Iditarod now come from sprint dogs,'' he said. ''If there wasn't a Rondy or (Open) North American, there wouldn't have been an Iditarod.'' Huntington swears by sprint dogs raised in Bush communities because years ago villagers raised dogs out of necessity, and in doing so they developed strong bloodlines. ''These dogs were bred and raised and trained for the sole purpose of providing a living for people who lived in villages. They couldn't afford to keep bum dogs,'' he said. ''... Before snowmachines came along, everyone had a dog team, but it was for making a living. Good dogs were bred to good dogs.'' Huntington believes a good dog is a good dog regardless of the distance being raced. As proof, look no further than Tex, a female who was a leader on both Huntington's 1973 Fur Rondy championship team and his 1974 Iditarod championship team. Tex retired following the 1974 season, but several of her Iditarod teammates became members of Huntington's sprint team in 1977, a season in which Huntington won just about every sprint race in the state, including Fur Rondy. Huntington doubts that anyone will match his back-to-back Rondy and Iditarod victories, mostly because things have changed so much in the last quarter century. ''It's probably impossible today,'' he said. ''As things grow from the pioneer state to high technology like it is now, there's just a fine line between failure and success sometimes. If you don't do it full-time on one or the other, you're not going to be on top.'' Executive sports editor Beth Bragg can be reached at bbragg@adn.com. |
©2000
Anchorage Daily News