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Jackman Teen Continues Winning Ways with Sled Dog Team

January 12, 2010 - DENNISTOWN -- One Jackman girl continued her sled dog race winning streak this weekend, capturing first place in the four-dog category of the Keith Bryar Memorial Sled Dog Races.

Sadie Theriault, 17, had the lowest combined time out of 14 mushers, at 31 minutes and 42 seconds, on the 5.2-mile trail, which started at Border Riders Clubhouse.

Theriault, who has been racing since she was 8, has won two world championship sled dog races in the junior category and one in the adult category.

The sled dog race occurred over Saturday and Sunday and drew 76 teams, including five junior drivers, from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, Ontario and Quebec. The purse totaled $4,125.

"Everything went smoothly," Theriault said after the race.

Theriault won her first sled dog race with a borrowed dog and sled, when she was 8-years old.

After that race in Jackman, the vice president of the Down East Sled Dog Club, Frank Thomas, told her if she wanted to continue to race, she could use his dog. But she would have to commit to five races.

"So I ended up going back and doing them all, and I ended up winning all of them," Theriault said.

The races were 100-yard sprints. By the end of the season, she said she wanted to go faster and farther, so she talked it over with her parents, Norman and Karen. They ended up buying three sled dogs.

"It was something that other kids weren't doing," Theriault said of her new-found sport. "Other kids were playing basketball or baseball. It was just something different."

The next year, 2003, she competed in races sanctioned by the International Sled Dog Racing Association. That organization assigns gold, silver and bronze medals to adult and junior mushers at the end of the racing season, based on the times of their best races in Canada and the United States.

Theriault entered the two-to-three-dog junior class and won the bronze medal at the end of the season. In 2004, in the same category, she received the silver medal. In 2005, she won gold.

That year also marked the first time she competed in the World Championships of the International Federation of Sled Dog Sports, which took place in Dawson City, Yukon.

Described as the "Olympics of dog sled racing," Theriault said she never thought she would go -- because of the cost and distance. Her parents told her she could go if she raised half of the $6,000 needed to make the trip.

She ended up raising all the money, with the help of family, friends, Nooksack Racing Supply in Oxford and Mountain Country Supermarket in Jackman. She was 12-years old.

In the world championship race, she was the youngest of the five drivers in her 12-to-16 age category and competed with four dogs. She won gold.

When asked what the secret is to winning, she said the formula involves training, nutrition and good breeds. "It's a combination of driver and dogs," she said.

In 2006, she decided there was nothing else to accomplish in the junior class, so she switched to the adult class, as a 13-year-old. She competed in the four-dog pro category and did not win overall medals that year.

Although there was hardly any snow that winter, she still competed in five races in Maine, Vermont and Canada. She became Maine State Champion in the four-dog pro category, in which 15 to 20 people competed, she said.

In 2007 she competed in her first skijor race. Skijoring involves skis, instead of a sled, and requires mushers to be connected to their dogs by a belt, which encircles the musher's waist. There are also no brakes, as there are with sleds, Theriault said.

She was in Haliburton, Ontario, and hadn't planned to skijor, she said. But she borrowed skis and wore someone else's boots, which were three sizes too big. She ended up winning the race.

She competed in eight races that year, in Maine, Ontario and Michigan, and won the silver medal for the International Sled Dog Racing Association. She was second out of 79 mushers in the four-dog category for adults.

In 2008 she competed in eight races across New England and Canada and won the silver medal for the season. In seven of those races she competed in the one-dog skijor.

Last year she competed in 10 races, including one in Markstay-Warren, Ontario. She got frost bite and was advised not to continue in the next day's race. But she ran the four-dog race anyway and won it.

The next weekend, Jan. 18, was the start of the world championship races in St-Just-de-Bretenières, Quebec. She competed in the one-dog junior ladies' skijor, which was a five-mile race, and won it.

The next weekend, starting Jan. 23, she competed in the world championship's four-dog adult category, which had a cut-off of age 16. She had just turned 16. Out of 30 teams in that category, from 10 different countries, and as the youngest musher, she won -- by 3.73 seconds.

Last year her four-dog team was undefeated.

Theriault owns six dogs -- four males and two females -- which are crosses of Alaskan Husky and German Shorthaired Pointer. They come from Wisconsin, New Hampshire, New York and Alaska. Her lead dog is named Keller, who is 5 years old.

Theriault competes in sprint races, which are usually between four and seven miles. She practices three or four times a week in the preseason and once a week during the winter, with races on weekends.

When asked why she races, she said, "I don't know. It's fun, and I enjoy being with the dogs, and I'm outdoorsy."

BY ERIN RHODA
Staff Writer, Kennebec Journal 01/11/2010


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