The 125-pound St. Bernard pulled a 280-pound sled loaded with 56 35-pound bags of Neutral Max 25 feet along the ice outside of the Valley Feed store on Eagle River Loop Road Saturday. For those dogs that can't do math, that's 2,240 pounds, which smashed the previous Eagle River Weight Pull record.

Garth's owner, Dean Fritz of Wasilla, took home $875 for the effort. Second in the heavyweight division was Sir, another St. Bernard, who won last year's event with a then-record-setting pull of 1,640 pounds. This year Sir topped out at 1,680 pounds.

"We have this rival going," said Fritz, who must have been referring to himself and Sir's owner, Jeannie Payton of North Pole, for the two huge, gentle canines seemed to pay little mind to each other.

Bow, another St. Bernard owned by Payton, placed third among the heavyweight "pros" at 840 pounds.

A purse of $7,000 was divided among the winners.

Valley Feed owner and event organizer Tony Valosek said the third annual event continues to grow in popularity.

"People have come to expect this now," Valosek said, adding that he'd like to see the event grow into a local winter carnival of sorts, the weight pull being the main event.

Forty dogs of various breeds competed this year, pulling various weights - or at least attempting to. Only 30 of them managed to drag the sled far enough to finish.

The little dogs went first, though nobody used the word "little" to describe the efforts by Nevada, a Weimaraner-Husky mix, and Nike, a husky. Each is owned by Kelley Griffin, and each pulled 1,120 pounds. Nevada crossed the line in 11 seconds, beating Nike's 33 seconds.

The closest race was a light middle weight battle between Kiska and Blue. Each pulled 1,280 pounds. Kiska, a lab-mix owned by Julie Herman, won it by a snout: 11 seconds to 11.8 seconds.

The middleweight division belonged to Chuck Durman's Husky-mix Coalfoot, but not by much as Dude, a malemute-lab owned by Dan Bates, made it interesting. Both dogs pulled 1,260 pounds. Coal-foot had the quicker feet: 8.3 seconds to Dude's 17 seconds.

Then came the St. Bernards to provide the grand finale, and Garth delivered.