Iditarod • The Scofflaws

Canine caning gets Ramy Brooks disqualified

It appears that Ramy Brooks pulled a Bobby Knight during the final stages of the Iditarod Trail Dog Sled Race, beating his dogs when they refused to run. Unlike coach Knight, though, Broooks got himself disqualified from the race.

Witnesses told race officials that Brooks struck each member of his team with a stake used for marking trails when two of the dogs refused to continue running on an ice field near Golovin about 90 miles from the finish in Nome.

I’m glad to see that the Iditarod is taking a hard stand on this, but it does seem funny that beating a dog can get you booted from a competition, while smacking your basketball players around only gets you a little bad press and maybe a warning from the NCAA. Maybe if college athletes were furry and cute we might stand up for them a little more.

The disqualification ends a rather brutal race for Brooks. One of his dogs, Kate, died during the last stage of the race, but he failed to wait at the checkpoint in Safety to report it. Because of the rule violation, Brooks was initially given a time penalty that dropped him from 12th place to 15th place. (An autopsy on the dog did not reveal any connection to the reported abuse.)

Meanwhile, the Iditarod still grinds on with eight teams still out on the trail. Ellen Halverson has fallen back into last place after briefly passing Donald Smidt. At last report, she left Koyuk early this morning about two hours behind Smidt with 170 miles left to go. Maybe this race will end sometime this week and then I can finally stop bothering you people with all this useless information.

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