For Earl and Natalie, there had to be good reason why Astro was a cornerstone in their program, both performance and breeding. For Acorn, we looked at him as a pup and all we could say was, "could it be?". I kept/keep looking for holes in this fellow and comparisons are always at best relative to their time period. Though we haven't been able to really speed train at our new location due to the type of long hills we have, I've had him carry an average speed of 17.9 mph in a 12 dog team going 8.4 miles and while that may not be fast, considering our trail, that is what I call, "cuttin'-a-rug".  AND Acorn does not ever appear to under any performance stress. As far as speed goes, he was easily on the towline in multiple occassions during the same outing running "long" down hills at 22 mph and occassionally slightly over. So, we do not consider Acorn a fluke and think of him as a pretty darn good dog.