Yukon Quest mushers reach Dawson City

Over half of the mushers competing in this year's Yukon Quest have arrived in Dawson City, Yukon, the halfway point in the 1,600-kilometre sled-dog race.

Hugh Neff was the first to pull into the Dawson City checkpoint at 3:35 p.m. PT on Tuesday, followed by Hans Gatt at 6:16 p.m. and Ken Anderson at 8:30 p.m.

"The morning of the race, I was watching CNN and they were talking about the Chinese symbol for this year which is the rabbit and this whole race I've sort of felt like the rabbit in front of everybody," said Neff, who hails from Tok, Alaska, and Annie Lake, Yukon.

"It's been fun. That's what it should be all about."

To date, 13 of the race's mushers have checked in at Dawson City. Josh Cadzow, Michelle Phillips and Jodi Bailey arrived before middayon Wednesday.

Phillips pulls out of race

Although Phillips has made it to Dawson City, the Tagish, Yukon-based musher scratched from the race Wednesday because she has the minimum number of dogs allowed to continue racing.

"She already dropped two dogs in Pelly, which left her with 12. And then coming to Scroggie, she dropped another four, so she's down to eight dogs," Yukon Quest race marshal Hans Otteli said.

"She had one [dog] in the basket coming in here," he added.

Otteli said Phillips wants to rest and let her dogs recover from their injuries. He added that Phillips doesn't want to risk the health of her team before they compete in the Iditarod next month.

36-hour layover

The remaining22mushers must stay in Dawson for a mandatory 36-hour layover to give them and their dogs a chance to rest. As the frontrunner, Neff can leave at 3:35 a.m. on Friday at the earliest.

The Yukon Quest began on Saturday from Whitehorse, with mushers and their sled dogs running 1,600 kilometres to the finish line in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Gatt, a four-time Yukon Quest champion from Whitehorse, said his dogs have contracted some kind of virus on the race trail and therefore they have not been performing at their best.

"They look good and they're happy, but there's lots of issues in my team," Gatt said.

"They caught a virus early on the race, and I dropped one dog in Pelly because of it. And it just goes through the whole team, so [there's] some which need to be dropped, I know that for sure."

Quebec musher Denis Tremblay scratched from the race in Carmacks, Yukon, after his dog team came down with a virus.