March 9, 2008

• Iditarod Day “9″

  The necropsy on Zaster, the dog from rookie John Stetson’s team who died early Saturday after having been flown to Anchorage for emergency veterinary care, is reported to have shown that aspiration pneumonia was the cause of death.  Stetson scratched from the race in Cripple at 4 PM Saturday, citing the loss of Zaster and concern over sick dogs in his team.
  
  Ryan Redington, the 25-year-old grandson of Iditarod founder Joe Redington, Sr., was in 48th position and down to ten tired dogs, when he scratched in Ruby on Saturday.  Ryan’s best finish of his four previous Iditarods was eighteenth, last year.

  This brings the field down to 89 teams now, all of whom have completed their mandatory 24 hour layovers.  Ken Anderson, now in 9th position, is the only musher out of the top 28 teams not to have completed the mandatory 8 hour rest on the Yukon River.  He has been in Kaltag for over six hours now, so that’s probably where he has decided to take his 8.

  I reported Friday that DeeDee Jonrowe had passed Paul Gebhardt and won the gold for being first into the halfway point at Cripple because Gebhardt had, “lost the trail and had to do some backtracking.”  Since then, I have gotten the full story.  The checkpoint had been moved about twenty miles further down the trail from its position last year.   Gebhardt was so worried that he had passed the checkpoint that he turned around, losing, he estimates, about six hours.

  Lance Mackey was in first position into Kaltag about 9:30 last night.  He spent only seven minutes there before getting back out on the trail.  Jeff King was almost an hour behind him into Kaltag, and rested there until 3:44 this morning.  Jeff still has all sixteen dogs he started with, and Lance has the fourteen he has been running with since Cripple.  Latest data from IonEarth Tracking shows Lance moving at 9 MPH, eleven miles behind Jeff , whose speed is shown at 7 MPH.  Kjetil Backen is shown 37 miles behind Lance, moving at 6 MPH.

  Leaving Kaltag behind Jeff King this morning were:
  3.  Paul Gebhardt at 5:50 with 12 dogs
  4.  Ramey Smyth at 9:20 with 12
  5.  Zack Steer at 9:36 with 12
  6.  Sebastian Schnuelle at 10:20 with 15
  7.  Kjetil Backen at 10:21 with 13
  8.  Hans Gatt at 10:22 with 12 dogs

  Martin Buser, Jim Lanier, Mitch Seavey, Rick Swenson, Aaron Burmeister, Ed Iten, Jessie Royer, DeeDee Jonrowe and John Baker are all in Kaltag.

  William Kleedehn, in 24th position in Nulato with 12 dogs, leads the rookies.  Rohn Buser, in 28th position, entered Nulato 33 minutes after Kleedehn, and is down to nine dogs.

  Deborah Bicknell apparently got her move on.  She has passed three teams, and has been in Cripple since 1:30 AM today, with 11 dogs.   The current Red Lantern is rookie Rodney Whaley, out of Ophir with 13 dogs.

  
  Al Grillo of the AP caught Lance Mackey multi-tasking, booting up Pimp while smooching with Rapper.

  
  Jeff King and his team, photo by Al Grillo of Associated Press
  
  Bob Hallinen of the Anchorage Daily News caught Jessie Royer’s dog Montana mid-sneeze.

  
  Photo by Bob Hallinen – the purple kuspuk and pink harness identify this as DeeDee Jonrowe and her team.

  Who’s your favorite musher?
  
       

  • 3:56 pm
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