Team all smiles for the miles

Wanaka Sled Dog Festival co-organiser Ray Holliday  at Snow Farm, near Wanaka, prepares to take...
Wanaka Sled Dog Festival co-organiser Ray Holliday at Snow Farm, near Wanaka, prepares to take off on a training run yesterday with his team of Siberian huskies (from left, front to back), Arluk, Libby, Kotick, Squirt, Mintie and Eva. Photo by Lucy Ibbotson.
The "real McCoy" is how sled-dog stalwarts Ray and Dianne Holliday describe the experience of racing their Siberian huskies on snow rather than dry land.

The pair, who have been breeding and working the dogs since the early 1990s, are at Snow Farm, near Wanaka, this week, for the annual Wanaka Sled Dog Festival - the premier event on the snow-dog racing calendar.

They are co-organisers of the festival, run by the Southern Regions Sled Dog Club, and much prefer snow racing to the more common dry-land form.

"In sled-dog terms, it's the ultimate to run on snow. In saying that, there are purists who won't run on snow, they just like the dry land," Mr Holliday said.

The couple and their family of nine dogs have been "itinerant" for the past few months, but are based in Blenheim.

Mr Holliday is the only musher (person who drives a dog sled) in New Zealand to have competed in every scheduled snow race in the country since 1995.

He uses the "Arthur Lydiard approach" to training his dogs, sometimes running them for four or five hours a day, at times towing a quadbike.

However, because he is the festival's race official this year, it is the first time since the event began in 1996 that Mr Holliday has not entered a team of dogs, so his current canine training schedule is a mere half-hour every couple of days.

Some people outside the sled-dog fraternity perceived the sport as cruel, but the opposite was true, Mrs Holliday said.

Yesterday, as the harnesses used to hitch the huskies to the sled were produced for a training run, the previously composed canines sprang to life and began excitedly howling and scratching at the snow, which continued until the precise moment the sled's anchor was released.

At that point, instant silence ensued, other than the whoosh of the sled and rapid pad of paws across snow as hours of training was put into practice. Mrs Holliday said it was a typical display. It demonstrated the dogs' love of racing and had provided the inspiration for the couple's sled-tour company's name - Quiet Running Adventures, which operates from Snow Farm each winter.

Twenty mushers from throughout New Zealand aged between 15 and 60-plus are competing at this week's festival, along with up to 70 four-legged athletes, including huskies, German short-haired pointers and Labradors.

"The sport is non-discriminatory towards breed," Mr Holliday said.

Race classes range from one-dog to six-dog teams, competing over distances between 3km and 10km.

The final race of the festival takes place at 7.30am tomorrow and the public was welcome to come and watch, the Hollidays said.

- lucy.ibbotson@odt.co.nz

 

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