DULUTH — Northwestern Wisconsin veteran musher Ryan Redington has won his first Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race, the grueling 1,000-mile Alaskan race founded 50 years ago by his grandfather, whose likeness is one of the prizes.
"My dream is to win the Iditarod and get that 90-pound statue of my grandpa," he said previously. "I would love to take that trophy home. Nobody from my family has ever won it."
Redington fulfilled that dream Tuesday with a considerable lead, crossing under the famous burled arch about 90 minutes ahead of Peter Kaiser, who finished second.
Redington began leading the pack about midway through the nine-day race, which runs from Anchorage to Nome, crossing rugged mountain ranges and the frozen Yukon River and traveling along the windy coast of the Bering Sea, where temperatures can plummet to 60 degrees below zero.
He started with 14 dogs and finished with six. Wildfire, the Alaskan husky that recovered from a devastating leg injury last year to successfully race the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in January, started the race March 5 but left Redington's team early last week because he was favoring his injured leg.
Redington, 40, who splits time between Brule, Wis., about 45 minutes southeast of Duluth, and his native Knik, Alaska, is a two-time Beargrease champion, well-liked in the mushing community. His Facebook page has garnered thousands of reactions throughout the race, including from a Minnesota classroom of children holding up signs bearing the names of his sled dogs.
Redington, from a family of elite mushers, has run the Iditarod 15 times before, with his best previous finish seventh place in 2021. He's been in the top 10 the past three years. His grandfather, Joe Redington Sr., founded the race in 1973 and ran his final Iditarod at age 80, and his father, Raymie, has also raced it several times, along with several other family members.
Problems along the trail included a fractured sled that had to be replaced, which didn't appear to slow Redington down. He finished the race in eight days, 21 hours and 12 minutes, with dogs Ghost and Sven in the lead.
His win comes a little over a year after a snowmobiler veered directly into his team on a trail in Brule, striking Wildfire and another dog before speeding off. Wildfire underwent months of intensive therapy for his leg, injured so badly that Redington thought he'd never race again.
Former Minnesotan Brent Sass, the defending champion, had to quit during this year's Iditarod while in the lead because of his poor health. Sass, 43, who grew up in Excelsior and now lives in Eureka, Alaska, said on social media Sunday that his dogs were willing but his struggles became too much.
Sass and his team were more than halfway through the remote race. Sass was the third musher to scratch of the 33 teams that started.
