No way to live life for sure. But that doesn’t mean you starve them and force them to pull your sled.
How many dead sled dogs is acceptable?
Where did you get the "starve" thing? You've got to feed them to get them to run fast enough to win the money.
Dogs have been domestic beasts of burden longer than horses have. In fact, they were the first animals domesticated by man. Have you ever been around wild wolves? It's pretty easy to see why they domesticated so easily.
Dogs dying during the race beats dogs dying in the streets getting hit by cars, and it happens exponentially fewer times, too. Hell, I bet more sled digs will die this year getting hit by snowgo racers on the Denali Hwy than by moose or exertion on the trail.