A Manitoban has won the province's world championship sled dog race for the first time in 16 years.
David Hochman of St. Malo. cruised to the finish line of The Pas Trappers Festival world championship race Saturday with a four minute edge -- considered a sizable lead in the sport.
David Hochman of St. Malo won the world championship with a four-minute edge, considered a sizable lead. ‘This is like the Stanley Cup,’ he said.
"This is like the Stanley Cup. To get a world title and have my name on the trophy with the other names I look up to means a lot," said Hochman, in a telephone interview from The Pas.
Hochman finished the gruelling three-day, 169-kilometre race with a time of six hours, 27 minutes and 45 seconds. He beat out perennial winner Kevin Cook of Saskatchewan.
The first two days of the race, Hochman's 10-dog team wore blankets to keep warm as wind chills dipped to the -40 C range. Hochman's dogs are Alaskan huskies crossed with German short-hair pointers.
His tandem lead dogs are named Muskol and Jill. The dogs keep a pace of about 27 km/h.
Hochman was recently profiled in the Free Press. He is originally from St. Boniface, a rarity in the sport where most competitors have a rural and northern background.
He learned to mush at Festival du Voyageur sled dog races. The festival has recently dropped mushing.
It was the seventh time Hochman has competed in the race since 1995, and his first win. The race is officially called Ma-Mow-We-Tak, which is Cree for "let's work together."
Hochman took home a total purse of $9,400.
"To be able to win a race like that, with a relatively small kennel, is quite the thing," said Hochman's wife Janet, back in St. Malo, 60 kilometres south of Winnipeg. Hochman is considered an anomaly in a sport where the top individuals come from longtime mushing families and are large kennel operators.
"Dave beat the best in the world," said Trappers Festival chairman Sonny Lavallee. The festival had a total attendance of nearly 12,000 people this year, he said. "That's really good for a northern community," Lavallee said.
bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
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