FARMINGTON – Farmington went to the dogs last weekend. Literally.

Members of the Down East Sled Dog Club were here for the second annual Farmington Sprint Races to show off their talents. After January’s dry weather, the two-day race could not have come soon enough for most of the racers and the hundreds of people who went to Sandy River Farm to watch them.

“The racers and the dogs are both a little irritable because they haven’t been able to race this year,” said race organizer and longtime club member Kathy Pickett. “Normally we have had four races by now. I’ve been racing since 1976, and we have never gone through January without having at a least one race.”

Pickett and the 90 contestants who signed up to race, some from as far away as Pennsylvania, couldn’t have been happier to see snow falling most of the day Saturday. Judging by the countless excited yips and yaps in the air, the dogs were just as happy as their human teammates.

Fast enough

“The course is good. It’s what we call ‘punchy,'” said racer Leon MacCorkle, who drove from Greenland, N.H. “It’s not quite as fast as it could be and the dogs have to work a little harder, but from an injury standpoint it’s a lot better. Normally I run a team of 11 dogs, but today I ran 14.”

MacCorkle’s was one of the larger teams racing. Team sizes ranged from a high of 16 or more all the way down to a single dog. Single dog sleds, or “one-doggers,” are used mostly by young racers and only run about 100 yards.

According to Pickett, kids who run the one-doggers can be very young. “My daughter has a stroller with skis for her 3-month-old little girl,” she grinned. “She has been talking about hooking up the stroller for a little run.”

Most of the races were between four and 10 miles, depending on the size of the team. Each team’s start time was staggered so that dogs didn’t run into each other on the course. Even after grueling runs over hilly terrain, most of the dogs still had enough energy to yip and play after their race was finished.

Energy left over

“We ran 10 miles today,” said MacCorkle after crossing the finish line. “The dogs are used to running 17 or 18 miles, so they still have some left in them.”

Along with the pulling sleds, dogs also competed in skijoring, a sport that crosses sled dog racing with cross country skiing. In it, one or two dogs were harnessed to a cross country skier to help pull him or her across the snow.

Pickett, who lives in Oxford, said that sports like sled dog racing and skijoring are not as popular as snowmobiling and some of the other wintertime sports. But she thinks that is beginning to change.

“They’re the lesser known winter sports in Maine,” she said, “but people like us because our racers buy things, eat at restaurants and rent rooms. We spend a lot of money when we go to a town.”

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