Sheep Mountain Update (contributed by Susie Rogan)

Actually Hans finished third, not second. Both Hans and Newton were supposed to run no faster than 10 to 12 miles per hour. Newton was bang on, taking 5 hours to do the first 50 miles and so on but Hans couldn't control himself and started racing during the last 1/4 of the race! He said with a smile, "I had to set a few things straight." It was like Sundance Film Festival of dog racing with mushers such as Jeff King (4 time Iditarod winner), Ken Anderson, Sebastian Schnuelle, Gerry Willomietzer, DeeDee Jonrowe (second place Iditarod), Aily Zirkle (1st place Yukon Quest), and Hans of course (3 times first place Yukon Quest and champion of many other races), etc. etc. Many were running this as a first race of the season, being careful and checking out their dogs under race conditions. The race could have been a lot more competitive if these people were giving it all they had, but they were preserving their teams for bigger races later in the season. Jessica Hendricks the winner specializes in the shorter races and this was her race to win. Newton also could definately have gone a lot faster but instead ran a perfect race and finished with all his dogs in great shape. The race vet approached me and said, "In case I don't get a chance to talk to Hans and Newton, would you pass on to them that Newton looked extremely good out there. Very professional. He had his check point routine down almost perfectly. You could tell he was having to think, but he didn't miss a thing." During this race we were witness to an extremely large full moon, it was in the newspaper as appearing 14% larger than normal due to being low on the horizon, and a big meteor shower. It was a magical night with the race starting at 1 p.m. and finishing at about 4 pm the next day. Enough said for now. It's -38 C here today and the shower is frozen so Lisa (the handler), and I are heading into town to the gym to take a shower. It's been a few days! Susie"