I heard the noise first. A crackle of fern, a stutter of stones and then the crunch of wheels on gravel, twig and pine needle matting. ‘Hike on, hike on’ is not something you hear in many British forests, but a burly, bearded man was bellowing this out to his teammates, which were two Siberian Husky dogs. It’s what you expect to see in the Arctic circle, rather than a Berkshire woodland, but whistling past me was a rider, stood in a sled, with two dogs pulling him along. What’s more there wasn’t a speck of snow in sight.
I had to pinch myself to believe what I was seeing, but I had stumbled across the latest event in the UK’s Sled Dog racing calendar. There were hundreds more like him, arriving later that day, in huge motor homes: team camps on wheels, with velvet lined apartments for the stars of the show, the dogs. Lack of snow is something of a drawback in the UK, so instead the dogs pull carts on three or four wheels. They are known as rigs.
I had stumbled into a whole new sporting world, into the premier league of sled dog racing, and I could see this was a whole way of life for these people, taking up their weekends from November to May. One couple told me they had just spent eight thousand pounds building a special hot tub and Jacuzzi in their garden just so they could keep their top dogs cool and fit in the summer months. This was serious. This was dedication to sport like you see on the Kop, or at the Millennium Stadium.
There was no financial reward in this, no long-term career, and the main physical prize was a bronze statue of a dog to take pride of place on the mantelpiece. The real attraction ran far deeper. It was the great sense of togetherness, the camaraderie, the fun, the thrill of working day in day out with your dog so that when it comes to your moment, you can pit your wits against the clock and beat other teams from across the land or even the globe. This was their world, in which they could be champion, and this meeting was a chance to mix and to share a drink with others who felt the same.
They couldn’t wait for me to experience the rush of the ‘mush’, which used to be what sled dog drivers shouted in Alaska. So I took charge of a beginner’s rig, with two very experienced dogs straining to give me the ride of my life.
Let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you have hurtled along behind a team of huskies, and you certainly don’t have to go to Greenland or Alaska to experience the thrill when you can shake, rattle and roll your way through the British countryside, twisting and turning and ducking the branches as your dogs get you through the tightest of angles.
It takes strategy and training to keep your team in peak condition, and to be able to work your sled dogs in harness on Forestry Commission land you have to have a permit, which you pay for. There are only a limited number of permits available in each area, and such is the sport’s popularity now that there is a long waiting list for permits in some regions. Some enthusiasts have to wait years. What’s more when you do get a permit, all your training on this Forestry land has to be done, either after dark or 8pm, or before 9am, when there are fewer members of the public around. It certainly requires dedication, travelling and training at the crack of dawn and at night, but as I jolted and wobbled on my rig as we careered through the trees, the river of adrenalin running through my veins convinced me of its appeal.
I even started to kid myself that I was in control and that my four-legged team members were actually listening to my voice command, ‘Hike on, hike’. We must have covered a mile: a mere sprint, but I felt like I had been in a tumble dryer. It would take more fitness training to build up to the longer races, like the Iditarod, the biggest event in the dog-sled racing calendar which covers 1150 miles, and takes anything from 10 to 17 days. This one is on snow, and in the UK they do race on the white stuff when it’s thick enough – the Siberian Husky Club of Great Britain have done this on several occasions in the last few years. On the whole though, it’s wheels and a rig, and a much bumpier ride. They welcome new members so for more information go to the website www.absasleddogracing.org.uk
This covers mainly the South of England, so other useful groups that can help include, Siberian Husky Club of GB, SDAS Sled dog Association of Scotland, BSHRA British Siberian Husky Racing Association, AMWA - Alaskan Malamute Working Association, and Snopeak – this lists all sled dog events for the whole race calendar covering all organisations.
While the most common dog used in dog sled racing is the husky, it’s said that between 1988 and 1991, a team of poodles competed in the famous Iditarod race. If you can’t afford to build a cart, or sled, then other variations include bike joring, when a dog or team of dogs pulls a bicycle, but for obvious reasons don’t try this yourself at home! There is also scooter joring, which involves the rider pushing along on a scooter which is being pulled by their dog. Finally if you want the minimum of equipment or fuss, then the sport of CaniX or Cani-cross could be for you. In this growing sport across the UK, you are harnessed from your waist directly to your dog. This does require a level of fitness and understanding with your companion though. Your dog is going to help you set a personal best for sure by running faster, but if you can’t keep up with them or hold them back, you will end up in the bushes or being dragged along the gravel. It’s proof that four legs are always faster than two. There is more on this in the chapter on animal sports.
My first encounter with the dogs was to have a lasting impact. I had been lucky enough to glimpse into a sporting world that I didn’t know existed. A sport whose results never appear on the back pages of the newspapers, or get a mention on the TV, and in the years that have followed it has been a privilege to lift the lid on hundreds of other similar sports.
After hearing about the huskies in their Jacuzzi, I thought if there’s that amount of dedication in this sport, what else is going on? What other stories of passionate sporting commitment deserve recognition?
If there are hundreds doing this in the forests, what else is going on behind closed doors, over hedges, in our lakes and on our seas?
So it began: a journey, a mission to broaden our sporting horizons, to uncover the events and activities that make this country the diverse and unique place it is. I thought it would be a journey that would last a few weeks, maybe months. I could never have imagined that it would be a marathon to outlast that Yorkshire to Ashwell voyage.
Some of the sports and activities I have encountered hadn’t even been conceived when I started. Rock-it-ball, for example, which aims to make school sport more inclusive for those children who were left on the sidelines in mainstream sports, hadn’t been invented. Now it’s played all over the world.
It’s this explosion in sporting opportunity that has fuelled my mission, and lifted me up, every step of the way. No matter how daft or bizarre or trivial an activity may seem at first, there is always a story to be told, a tale of how sport has enriched people’s lives.
First came the huskies, then a Frisbee and Octopush. Not the inky creature wallowing in the sea, but underwater hockey, to give it another name. Over the following chapters I hope you will find something that grabs you by the legs and leaves you gulping for air, or bites you in the way the huskies did to me in that Berkshire forest.
And they’re off. If it’s got four legs and can move, it’s fair game. Animals have been involved in our sporting pursuits ever since the first game was played. Today the Grand National, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, the Derby and Royal Ascot are highlights of the sporting calendar, and horses are also the stars in prestigious polo matches all over the world. Dogs can also claim to be main players, while in contrast cats are too cool to get involved in such mindless activities. This section looks at some of the main sports involving animals that I have come across. Thankfully barbaric so-called pastimes like cock fighting and bear baiting are no more on these shores, and I won’t be covering ferret-bagging either, but there should be plenty of surprises and we will discover why some animals more than