Yukon Quest Team Rosters

Allen will take the following 14 athletes with him on the Yukon Quest 1000 later this morning:

Kodiak, Dutch, Junior, Mismo, Izzy, Felix, Chipper, Champ, Commando, Amber, Nomex, Spark, Rodney and Daisy.


Amber and Nomex, two of the seven YQ1000 rookies

Izzy is the only dog on the team that ran Whitehorse to Fairbanks in 2015. Allen said that could be either a good thing or a bad thing climbing Eagle Summit and Rosebud! He has seven Yukon Quest 1000 rookies and two of them, Rodney and Daisy, have not run 1000 miles before.

Aliy says: The Yukon Quest team is more than a team, it is a family. All fourteen dogs are the pups of the three SPK Kennel All-Star 10 year old siblings: Nacho, Chica and Quito. So even though they are no longer racing – Nacho and Quito are at the kennel and Chica is in Anchorage - their presence on this race will be overwhelming.

Over half of this team is Nacho/Olivia puppies: Dutch, Kodiak, Junior, Commando, Amber, Nomex, Spark and Daisy. Nacho has one more pup on the team, a Nutmeg puppy: Champ. The Quito and Biscuit puppies are Mismo, Izzy, Felix and Chipper. Chica has one puppy on the race: Rodney. He is the youngster on the team.

So, if you wonder how well do our dogs know each other? Or how tight knit is the team? There are probably few, if any, other dog teams in long distance mushing in which ALL the team mates are siblings or first cousins.

Watch a few of our SPK videos featuring the Secrets, the Fire Litter, the Latinos and the Golf Litter as puppies. Or this past Fall 2016, I took some video of these litters as well.
(You can find them in the archive section down the left hand side of the blog. Perhaps something to do when you are waiting for the tracker to update?)

For more information about the athletes, check out the race roster page.

THE RED TEAM

Aliy has 12 team mates going 300 miles with her:

Driver, Violet, Chena, Ernie, Ginger, Hotshot, Scooter, Iron, Outlaw, Tinder, Schmoe and Woody.


Ernie and Ginger make the squad

The Red Team has four from the Fire litter, three from the Golf litter, two from the "S" litter, two from the "Five" litter and one of the "Outlaws".

Ernie, Ginger, Hotshot, Tinder and Woody are YQ300 rookies and technically so is Schmoe but he has raced the 1000 mile version four times so he's seen these trails before.

For more information about the athletes, check out the race roster page.

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It's always a difficult decision to pick who will and won't be on the team. Sometimes it is easy: if someone is sore or tired from training or another race we will not pick them to give them the best chance to be ready for the next race. Allen had 16 dogs on his roster right up until last night with numbers 14, 15 and 16 bracketed. Each had great reasons to be picked and each provided some element of uncertainty.

As far as Aliy's team is concerned, it was even harder. There are a number of dogs back at the kennel that could do 300 miles and are proven over that distance but we already know will be important for one of the Iditarod teams so are being rested for that. This gives other younger dogs the chance to prove themselves in this race. We always pick the "in-form" players for the top team but also keep the long term in mind when choosing, which is why you will see some youngsters in the Red Team instead of more established faces. Aliy and Allen really wanted to see what some of those youngsters were made of.

Thanks Chris and Ruth who are caring for and continuing to train those left at home.