We know how much the dogs love it so being able to take them out and enjoy the sport with them
and having that bond with the dog, it's really special.
Do the dogs like racing? Hell yeah.
We've only got to pick up the harness and they start going nuts.
- It's magic. - Yeah, it is magic.
In this race on the weekend there's seconds. That's all you have.
One scoot on the scooter can mean the difference between you coming second and first.
Youse hungry girls? You hungry girls?
We've been racing sled dogs since 1994.
We wanted to prove that the dogs that we had bred were fit for purpose, that they were physically
able to do what they were bred to do and that's how we got into racing. And once you start racing it is a bug.
You start off with one, then you need two, and then before you know it you're getting a bigger house,
you're getting a dog trailer and it just goes on and on and on.
Race season is very short, so we race from June to August.
So in Australia we race dry land and they're usually on tracks through forests
and then we do snow racing which is in Victoria only.
It's no different for the dogs, racing on either snow or dirt.
They don't care what they're running and what environment, they just love to run.
Wayne and I have been quite successful over the years.
Top fives.
Yeah top fives for a number of years.
But we don't have an issue if we come last. I mean, not that that happens very often.
I’m Jess, I’m 18 years old, I’ve been doing dog sledding since I was four years old.
My whole family does sled dog racing. I’ve been doing it for so long it’s like natural for me.
It’s natural for me to go out and compete.
So we have 26. 26 dogs all up. We've got some that are retired, we've got some that are young.
And we’ve got our big race dogs that hopefully will do quite well this year.
They all have names. They're all our pets. We go out and we spend a lot of time with them.
We get to know them, their personality, 'cause obviously we need to know what they like to be able to train them.
They have to have a lot of trust in us and we have to have a lot of trust in them.
It's a lot of work. It's a lot of poo pick up. A lot.
The race that's on this weekend in Shepparton, it is the biggest in Australia and that's because it's so fast.
So I will be running six-dog. It's actually my very first race in six-dog, so I'm a bit excited, looking forward to it.
We've got approximately 150 entries from about 120 mushers.
and it's probably around three to four hundred dogs here.
Anyone with any type of dog can enter, we're just out here for the fun of it.
Doing alright, we'll start with a roll call.
So the atmosphere on race day is usually when you wake up, the adrenalin is there,
you are excited but you've also got that fear, you're tense, you tend to be a little bit snappy with your partner
because you're in that race focus, the zone.
Have a really good day of racing and see you at the start line!
So sled dog racing in Australia has been going since the late '80s, early '90s.
The big stipulation for our event is we do need to run under 15 degrees.
What that means for us is late nights and early mornings racing.
The pinnacle of the weekend would definitely be the larger classes, the four, six and eight dog classes.
There's a lot of competition in those bigger classes.
Yes it is a competitive sport, very competitive. We all want to win. We put a lot of money into the sport,
we all believe we've bred the best dogs, we've trained the best.
Over summer, we get on very well, we all catch up, we'll go have fun days and that type of thing.
But once you do all your training and you're on that start line, it's every man for himself.
The start line, you get a hit of adrenalin hearing all the dogs go sick and the crowd of people watching,
It's just havoc. We've actually had people come up to us in the forest thinking that we were killing dogs.
There's a start clock and it's got a countdown and then when it goes beep, they know that's party time.
The dogs are controlled purely by voice command.
A lot of people use the traditional Inuit commands, just as a bit of a homage to the traditional sled dogs.
Anything can go wrong, you can come against a tree, I can get a flat tyre,
my breaks can stick on, I can't get them off, one of my dogs get injured, anything can go wrong.
You've just got to focus and leave your dogs to do the job that they want to do which is running, they love it.
Just let them do it and just focus on the trail.
Nah, no competition. On track aren't ya buddy? You just want a smooch and chook neck, don't you, eh?
I'm placing sixth. I’m very, very happy. It’s my first open race in six-dog class so I can’t be happier!
So we get a lot of feedback around the comparisons between horse racing, greyhound racing and sled racing.
I guess the big difference for us is a majority of these dogs live in people's' homes.
You know, 365 days of the year they're our pets above all else. And we just bring them out here to race for fun.
You can't make a dog run.
There's just no way in hell you're going to get it to run if it doesn't feel comfortable with running.
They just love it. They're in front of you so they are controlling the situation.
You are just a voice, that is all you are, is a voice.
Our dogs wouldn't have it any other way. If we put them in a pet environment, in a house environment, suburbia,
they would try to escape, they would go sick. They love it.