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Ryan Redington, the grandson of Joe Redington Sr., who helped co-found the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race in Alaska in 1973, has won the 2023 race.
Redington, who is Inupiat, is the sixth Alaska Native musher to win the world-famous sled dog race.
He crossed the finish line in Nome around 12:15 p.m. with his six dogs after a nearly 1,000-mile race that started on March 5 in Willow.
The race had a small field, with only 33 mushers starting, one short of the first-ever race run.
Redington previously won the Junior Iditarod in 1999 and 2000, and his father, Raymie, is a 10-time Iditarod finisher.
Redington said winning the race had been a goal of his since he was a small child.
He had failed in seven of his 16 previous attempts, but his performance this decade had been the best of his career, with this year’s win being his first.
The two mushers who were chasing Redington to Nome were also Alaska Natives, Pete Kaiser, who is Yup’ik and won the 2019 Iditarod, and Richie Diehl, who is Dena’ina Athabascan.
Redington splits his time between Alaska and Wisconsin and trains his dogs in Brule, Wisconsin, in the fall and winter.
He races in Alaska and Minnesota beginning in December and has a sled dog tour for tourists in the ski community of Girdwood in the summers.
In January 2022, while training in northern Wisconsin, a snowmobile driver veered into Redington’s dog team, injuring two dogs before speeding off.
One of the dogs, Wildfire, suffered multiple broken bones but recovered after multiple surgeries and started this year’s race.
However, Redington dropped him at the checkpoint in Skwentna a day after the official start because he was “just a little sore,” according to the Iditarod Insider webpage.
»Ryan Redington wins 2023 race«
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