So excited and proud! -- Rookie Dallas Seavey wins Yukon Quest

Iditarod veteran (and friend of mine) Dallas Seavey is running his rookie Yukon Quest, and is just hours from WINNING! It's been an insane race with many of the should have been frontrunners scratching (withdrawing) due to weather/cold... and falling through the ice in teh river. Dallas fell through, but was able to continue on.

It's just amazing. I am so happy for him. Even if he comes second or third there was no way he was supposed to even be this close. He's using it as a training run for the Iditarod that starts in two weeks~!!!

HE DID IT! Dallas and his team of 10 dogs came across teh finish line at 11:05pm Alaska Standard Time...

Yes I am OVER THE MOON for him. His whole family flew up to meet him at the finish line... best his wife has a huge smile on her face... and if she let their little girl stay up I bet her very exhausted papa was happy to see her!

Yay, Toni! (Oh, I mean, yay, Dallas!)

I have a question about these wilderness races. Do they have people stationed along the way to give assistance to teams that get in trouble. Like, is there someone at the river to pull the mushers and the dogs out if they fall through? Or are you out there on your own most of the way?

Congratulation! So happy for your friend, Toni. arty:

Mathman said:

Yay, Toni! (Oh, I mean, yay, Dallas!)

I have a question about these wilderness races. Do they have people stationed along the way to give assistance to teams that get in trouble. Like, is there someone at the river to pull the mushers and the dogs out if they fall through? Or are you out there on your own most of the way?

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LOL! I had nothing to do with Dallas' win! He won in SPITE of my jinxing!

To answer your question - yes and no. There are officials in every checkpoint to help mushers in distress, problem is in an over 1000 mile trail you can't be whereever they are all the time as the racers are pretty spread out. In the case of the over flow in the river many mushers "fell through" but at different times. Normally in dangerous stretches of trail two teams will decide to run together/close enough that if one gets in trouble someone else is there.

Once someone outside of the race helps you, you are disqualifed (other racers can help, but if an official trucks you to a checkpoint back or forward you're done). This is about you and the dogs type thing.

Officials are constantly watching those areas that are trouble spots, though, and are watching each musher's GPS tracker. If a musher does not check in to a check point within a given timeframe - as in teh case of Hugh Neff during this race - then snow machiners are sent out to find out what is going on. If a musher is just hunkered down due to sled problems, they're resting, or the dogs have decided they aren't moving just yet, then the snow machines head back to the check point and report everything is fine. Airplanes and other mushers info is also used to deal with these issues.

Dallas was helped out of the river by, I believe, third place finisher Ken Anderson. Hans Gatt (who ended up scratching because he was teh first to fall through and was stuck in the water for quite a while - he rescued the dogs and they were fine, but he went back in for his sled and ended up getting stuck himself) was helped by second place finisher Sebastian Schnuelle.

in 200... I want to say 8... the Iditarod saw new rules come out of a stupid rookie deciding he could take his team out into a blizzard. (He should have stayed hunkered down on the trail, but he decided to plug on. He got stuck, nearly died and a lot of his dogs did get sick or die... it was absolutely STUPID what he did, and he got heavily chastised for it (after he recovered) by the mushing community even though he, too, was upset over his loss. But he claimed sleep depravation. So new rules were set in place on rookie mushers, and many more miles/races have to be under their belt AND a veteran of the Iditarod must sign off on the rookie before they can apply to be part of the race.

These races are about the dogs at all times. In fact the volunteer vets are an amazing team of people who come together after every race to discuss how to make it even better for the dogs while still being a challenge. The Iditarod celebrated the biggest vet achievement last year as there were no dog deaths in the race. A first. I know that makes the race sound cruel, but these dogs not only love what they do (I've seen the dogs that have to stay home, they're the ones that look abused lol they look so rejected) and those that do die would have the same sickness/issues as they would if they were just regular outdoor dogs. More dogs die on percentage as "house pets" in the same two weeks than do the Iditarod or Quest. They're taken better care of vet wise and owner wise than most couch potato dogs. My dog was severely over weight until I started working with Dallas and his family and realizing how to regulate what goes into my dog's body. My vet saw the improvement right away and LOVED it.

There's no reason for the mushers to abuse their teams, it will discourage a champion team. Dogs won't run if they aren't happy. Just ask Ramy Brooks' team where he got frustrated with his dogs and began smacking them to try and get them to run. The dogs laid down and wouldn't move. Unhappy dogs do not run and win the Iditarod... they just don't run period.

Congratulations to Dallas! (and to you, Toni; your jinx is broken!)

Congrats to Dallas and you, Toni! I think I understand how much this race means to you!

iluvtodd said:

Congrats to Dallas and you, Toni! I think I understand how much this race means to you!

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When you grow up with the Iditarod, it is hard for it not to be a passion. My grandparents have been volunteers almost since the beginning. My grandfather found a box of memoribilia dating back to before I was born. It's amazing to see how much the race has changed (mostly for the better). He has personal letters from Susan Butcher, Libby Riddles and other "big star" mushers. So, yeah, it is a passion of mine even though I've never run behind a dog sled. (ridden in them, but had a bad experience - ended up in teh water - so I don't trust the dogs not to do it again... which drives Jen and Dallas nuts lol because they keep trying to get me to work with the dogs).

Meeting and working for the Seavey's just fueled the love for the sport and the dogs... their teams are full of fantastic four legged characters.

Tonichelle said:

...even though I've never run behind a dog sled. (ridden in them, but had a bad experience - ended up in teh water - so I don't trust the dogs not to do it again...

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Do the dogs sometimes run away with the sled, like a horse. If the musher really got in trouble, could he let go/jump off? Would this put the dogs in danger, like they might run off over a cliff or something?

PS. Do both male and female dogs participate in this sport?

The first rule of mushing is - don't let go of the sled. The dogs will take off. They won't fall off a cliff, but they could get teh sled stuck and injuries happen that way. Besides, you're having to hoof it until another team comes along, and then you're stuck searching for your dog team. Basically the dogs will run until they make the next checkpoint or the sled gets stuck. They can run into many dangers on the trail. They typically won't find themselves falling through the ice, but the sled might break through, but they could run into moose or other animals, etc.

On a similar note, while a musher will not be disqualified if his team makes it into a checkpoint without their musher, a musher CANNOT make it to the next checkpoint with fewer dogs than he left the last checkpoint with. If it's not recorded that they dropped a dog (which is flown back to Anchorage to be cared for by the musher's handlers) they better have the same number they left with. This is a way that mushers end up scratching when they have a houdini dog that can get out of its harness and runs lose. This happens most times when the team goes right around a tree and one dog goes left. And it happens more times than not. There's always that one dog that isn't as bright as the rest.

And, yes, both male and females race... it makes it really interesting when one of teh females goes into heat... because the boys stop thinking about racing and well... ya know.

in 2002 Perry Solmonson (a red lantern award winning musher) had to scratch from teh Iditarod because half of his team were female and all but one came into heat half way through teh race. Poor planning on his part. He's also a good friend (my brother and his daughter are smitten with each other, so it's been *interesting* as of late... neither one is allowed to date yet, though lol... my bro won't be dating till he's 18 so he needs to cool his jets).

Toni, I thought you'd like to know that here in Englewood, FL, this morning there was an insert in our paper called American Profile, and the cover article was "Sledding with the Seaveys" with a great picture.

There's an on line link:
http://www.americanprofile.com/article/44562.html

The link has lots of pictures and a video!

dorispulaski said:

Toni, I thought you'd like to know that here in Englewood, FL, this morning there was an insert in our paper called American Profile, and the cover article was "Sledding with the Seaveys" with a great picture.

There's an on line link:
http://www.americanprofile.com/article/44562.html

The link has lots of pictures and a video!

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I knew the article was due out soon! Thanks for the link, though! I was in contact with the guy who came up and did the article, as the Seavey's suggested he use some of my photos, guess I should go see if he did or not.

and it's good to read the final quote in the article by Mitch. Because I know he was getting a little annoyed that all the media was focussing on was that he lost to Dallas last year and that it signalled Mitch was washed up.

“I’d like nothing better than to be racing neck-to-neck with him coming down the coast to Nome,” Mitch says. “In that scenario, I’d feel like a winner regardless of the outcome.”

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And I love the photo of Dan Seavey with the dogs. The man who started the family obsession. He's a great guy, love his laugh! And he's so very proud of his grandsons, it really shows. Great family.

if anyone is interested, Dallas' main sponsors have a youtube channel that they update with videos of Dallas' races as well as Dallas' home videos of the team and such. There are several new videos, one meeting the team and one showing the after Quest care that the dogs are getting.

http://www.youtube.com/user/jjkelleriditarod

enjoy.