How do you identify Mecanim animations through code?

Is there a way to identify or designate mecanim animations so that they can be accessed and used in code?

For instance, if you want a 'sprinting' animation to begin playing after a animation of someone shooting a 'starter's gun' plays, could this be done by identifying the animations and coding them to play after one another? (note - I know this isn't the way you'd go about coding this example but it's just a hypothetical).