Editor’s note: Richland Source is posting daily updates on Mansfield native Matthew Failor’s efforts at the 2024 Iditarod Sled Dog Race, which began March 3. Updates post daily at 8 a.m. and may be updated during the day.
(UPDATE: Matthew Failor crossed the finish line in Nome at 5:28 p.m. AKDT, finishing 13th among 38 mushers who started the nearly 1,000-mile race on March 3.)
(UPDATE: Matthew Failor reached the checkpoint in Safety at 2:14 p.m. ADT and is nearing the finish line in Nome.)
(UPDATE: Matthew Failor left White Mountain on Wednesday at 7:50 a.m. ADT for the 77-mile run to the finish line in Nome. He was running in 13th position when he left the checkpoint after resting his dog team for around eight hours.)
ON THE IDITAROD TRAIL, Alaska — Tell Theo that Da-Da is on his way home.
Mansfield native Matthew Failor, father to Theo and husband to Liz, pulled into White Mountain on Tuesday night at 11:37 p.m. ADT, just 77 miles from successfully completing his 12th Iditarod Sled Dog Race.
Both Liz and Theo will be waiting for him in Nome when Matthew finishes, likely later today or tonight.
Failor, who turned 42 years old on the nearly 1,000-mile trail again this year, won’t match last year’s 8th-place finish. He won’t match last year’s time of 9 days, 9 hours and 20 minutes.
But as he enjoyed what will likely be his final rest break of the race with his team in the minus-10 degree Alaskan night, the 2000 St. Peter’s High School graduate was focused on the same thing he has focused on since the race began March 3 near his hometown of Willow.
Taking care of his dogs — especially in a race that has seen three canine competitors perish on the trail.
Failor arrived at White Mountain in 13th place with 11 of the 16 dogs with which he began the race.
He has sent five of them home at various points and has awarded his dogs lengthy rest periods at the last several checkpoints.
One of those stops turned into a 9-hour and 27-minute break at Unalakleet after the death of a dog on another team traveling near Failor on Sunday.
He spent most of Monday and Tuesday mushing along near Iditarod veterans Wally Robinson and Nicolas Petit.
Failor was with Robinson and Petit at White Mountain as of 4 a.m. ADT.
An Eagle Scout growing up in Mansfield who earned a degree at The Ohio State University in fine arts photography, Failor has always maintained his dogs are just like family.
That love is even more essential this year to Failor and his beloved 17th-Dog team, part of his Alaskan Husky Adventures business back home in Willow.
The 52nd Iditarod, dubbed “The Last Great Race” has seen three dogs die on the trail that ends in Nome, making it the deadliest race in seven years.
The third came Tuesday when Henry, a 3-year-old rookie on Calvin Daugherty’s team collapsed at 10:15 a.m. outside of Shaktoolik, a checkpoint that marks mile 754 in the race.
“Daugherty administered CPR but unfortunately the attempts to revive Henry were unsuccessful,” race officials said in a statement.
A pathologist will conduct a necropsy to try to determine the cause of Henry’s death.
The Iditarod reported the other two dog deaths on Sunday. George was a 4-year-old on musher Hunter Keefe’s team and Bog was a 2-year-old on Isaac Teaford’s team. Both collapsed on the trail, race officials say.
Officials said they’re still investigating what caused George’s and Bog’s deaths.
According to a story in Alaskan Public Media, it’s the deadliest Iditarod since 2017 when five dogs died, including three on the trail.
The news organization reported that in 2017 a fourth dog died after overheating on a cargo flight from the Galena checkpoint and another dropped dog was struck and killed in Anchorage after it was released from Iditarod care and escaped from a handler’s home.
In 2018, one dog died during the race and in 2019 one dog died two days after crossing the Nome finish line. The Iditarod did not report any dog deaths from 2020 until this year, according to Alaskan Public Media.
Under race rules adopted in 2018, if a dog dies, the musher must voluntarily scratch from the race or they will be withdrawn unless the dog died due to an “unpreventable hazard” like a moose encounter.
Daugherty, Teaford and Keefe all scratched from the Iditarod.
Needless to say, given the dislike for the event from animal rights groups that existed even before this year’s race, the Iditarod Trail Committee that operates the race will be under a brighter microscope in the offseason.
The race announced Henry’s death Tuesday as Dallas Seavey from Talkeetna, Alaska, was less than 20 miles from the finish line in Nome, where he won a record-breaking sixth Iditarod.
Seavey, 37, was 10th at one point earlier in the race when a two-hour time penalty was assessed after he failed to properly gut a moose that he killed after it attacked his team and badly injured one of his dogs.
Seavey was also questioned regarding how he handled his injured dog, leaving the moose site and then camping along the trail for three hours before going onto the next checkpoint.
After he reached the next checkpoint in Finger Lake, the dog was flown to Anchorage where it underwent successful surgery and returned to its home kennel.
Seavey finished in 9 days, two hours and 16 minutes, crossing the finish line at 5:16 p.m. AKDT.
“This one was supposed to be hard,” Seavey told the crowd. “It had to be special, it had to be more than just a normal Iditarod, and for me, it was.”
As he neared the finish line, Seavey jumped from his sled and ran several steps with his dogs, pumping his fists. The 10 dogs remaining in harness each got hugs from the musher after he crossed under the famed burled arch in Nome.
“There wasn’t a core group of super, super athletes, but what these guys had was a lot of heart, and it was a team, and they worked together the whole way down the trail,” he said.
“When you look back at 1,000 miles of what these dogs just covered, the challenges they faced, you can’t swallow that in one bite, but we can have one good step at a time. And if you can keep doing that, it leads to something.”
Seavey ran his first Iditarod at age 18 in 2005, finishing 51st. Since then he’s added his name to the family history, winning the race in 2012, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2021 and 2024.
His father, Mitch, won three Iditarods in 2004, 2013 and 2017. His grandfather, Dan, had two Top-10 finishes, including the inaugural Iditarod in 1973, when he finished a career-best third.
Musher Matt Hall from Two Rivers, Alaska, was second, finishing four hours behind Seavey in 9 days, 6 hours and 57 minutes.
Jessie Holmes from Brushkana, Alaska, finished third in 9 days, 8 hours and 18 minutes.
Jeff Deeter from Fairbanks, Alaska, finished fourth, crossing the line just before 3 a.m.
The race began with 38 mushers competing. As of Wednesday morning, with seven teams scratching and four across the finish line, there were 27 teams still on the trail.
