Balto the Hero

I took this photo in Central park New York. This dog had quite interesting story that made him a hero. I found the information below online.

Balto (1919 – 14 March 1933) was a Siberian Husky sled dog who led his team on the final leg of the 1925 serum run to Nome, in which deadly diphtheria epidemic would spread among the children of Nome. They needed to travel nearly a thousand miles to Anchorage to retrieve the only medicine to stop the outbreak existed. They travel to Alaska by train and then to Nome by dog sled to combat an outbreak of the disease. Balto became a national hero. Just 10 months after the successful mission, this statue by animal sculptor Frederick G. R. Roth was dedicated in Central Park. The sculpture depicts Balto surveying the distance, hind legs braced and a sled harness hanging from his back. The run is commemorated by the annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. Balto was named after the Sami explorer Samuel Balto. Balto died at the age of 11.

In front of the statue a low-relief slate plaque depicts Balto's sled team, and bears the following inscription:

Dedicated to the indomitable spirit of the sled dogs that relayed antitoxin six hundred miles over rough ice, across treacherous waters, through Arctic blizzards from Nenana to the relief of stricken Nome in the Winter of 1925.
Endurance · Fidelity · Intelligence

Balto is a bronze statue with slate tablet over natural rock.