PELLY CROSSING, Yukon — Four mushers scratched from the Yukon Quest on Monday, including reigning rookie of the year Matt Hall.
The Two Rivers musher, who placed third in 2014 to claim the top rookie award, returned to Pelly at about 3:30 p.m. after departing roughly an hour earlier for Dawson.
Hall’s team had suffered a handful of minor injuries earlier in the race, and he was down to just eight healthy dogs. He said he felt it would be selfish to ask his depleted team to go an additional 700 miles.
“They just weren’t doing what they wanted to be doing,” Hall said. “They didn’t want to be there.”
Scott Smith, Tamra Reynolds and Tony Angelo dropped out of the race earlier in Carmacks.
Hall has never scratched in three years of racing and said his team has had a remarkably healthy training season. He said a rough stretch of jumble ice might have contributed to some of the soreness but that the source of most of the injuries was tough to pinpoint.
“I think we got really unlucky,” he said. “The cards just didn’t play out.”
Smith, of Willow, also entered the race with legitimate hopes for a strong Quest. He finished fifth in the Quest in 2013, when he was the top rookie.
Smith cut his race short after several key dogs were injured. He plans to run the Iditarod next month and didn’t want to simply shuffle through the rest of the route, Race Marshal Doug Grilliot said.
“It just wasn’t up to his expectations,” he said.
Angelo, of Fairbanks, and Reynolds, of Mt. Lorne, Yukon, both were looking to complete their first Quest.
Angelo was making his second attempt after bogging down on the Yukon River near Dawson City last year. He turned back to Carmacks this year soon after leaving the checkpoint.
Like Hall, he said his team lost several dogs to fluke injuries, including a 10-year-old female that went into heat and a male that injured his shoulder trying to get to her. Angelo said he didn’t want to push ahead with fewer than 10 dogs so early in the race.
Reynolds was on her first Quest run. Grilliot said she had lost several veteran dogs and didn’t feel comfortable continuing with an inexperienced team.
Follow staff writer Jeff Richardson on Twitter: @FDNMquest.
Après l'abandon de Scott Smith trois autres mushers ont jugé prudent, lundi 9 février, d'abandonner la Yukon Quest 2015 : Tamra Reynolds (dossard 6), Tony Angelo (10) et Matt Hall (25). Reynolds, arrivée à Carmacks, n'en est pas repartie. Angelo avait lui quitté le checkpoint avant de faire demi-tour pour abandonner (le règlement de la course précise qu'il n'est possible d'abandonner qu'à un checkpoint). Matt Hall, lui, avait atteint Pelly Crossings, le troisième checkpoint. Il avait initialement décidé de continuer avec seulement huit chiens sur les quatorze du départ avant de renoncer.