[Be sure to read the UPDATES at the bottom of this post.]
Ramy Brooks arrived in Nome in 12th place this year, ahead of former champion Robert Sorlie as well as seasoned pros Aaron Burmeister and Jason Barron. But the leaderboard this morning tells a different story — Brooks now appears to have arrived in 15th place, behind Sorlie, Burmeister and Barron. What happened?
Race officials held Brooks’ finishing time in Nome in the wake of a dog death on his team, pending the outcome of a gross necropsy. Kate, a 3-year old female, died on the trail between the White Mountain and Safety checkpoints.
- Iditarod initial press release about dog death
- Iditarod updated press release following gross necropsy
Normally mushers stop at a checkpoint and await a necropsy and/or instructions from the Race Marshal when a dog dies on the trail — that is the official procedure. But Safety, only 22 miles from the finish line, either failed to hold Brooks or actively waved him on to the finish where officials could better handle the situation. The Iditarod Trail Committee has not explained what happened at Safety.
Meanwhile, in less morose or confusing news, APRN trail reporter Ellen Lockyer is in Nome watching mushing teams arrive and in this audio report looks back on the tough competition.
Finally, as of this hour (7:30 a.m., Thursday 3/15), here are a few other stats and highlights:
- 23 teams have arrived in Nome
- 36 teams are still on the trail
- 22 teams have scratched
- The Red Lantern is currently in Donald Smidt’s hands; he’s currently at Eagle Island
- Sigrid Ekran, as expected, took Rookie of the Year and arrived in Nome in 22nd place
- 3 dogs have died on the trail so far this year, one each on Karen Ramstead’s, Matt Hayashida’s and Ramy Brooks‘ teams
- Lance Mackey’s dog Zorro, an 8-year old male Mackey dropped at White Mountain, is showing improved health after being diagnosed with pneumonia
- Prior to this year, no one had ever won both the Yukon Quest and Iditarod in the same year
UPDATE 1: Our story originally used terms such as “penalties” or “rules violations” in describing events surrounding the death of Ramy Brooks’ dog Kate and his drop down the leaderboard. However, official statements from the ITC do not claim Ramy Brooks violated the rules, nor do they characterize his drop to 15th place as a penalty. We’ve added two links to the press releases from the ITC (above) so readers can review the official race statements.
We deeply regret the mistake in our first version of this report. We’d like to point out that Ramy Brooks is an experienced Iditarod musher with 12 years of successful race finishes — twice finishing in second place and nine more times in the top 20. He’s been around dog sledding for more than 30 years and clearly knows the rules of the trail.
UPDATE 2: The Anchorage Daily News has posted a story about this event, raising some additional questions that the ITC has not yet adequately answered.
UPDATE 3: Ramy Brooks has now been disqualified from the entire 2007 Iditarod. Tom Feyereisen (the Crow Village Iditarod Blog) wrote up this latest news for us, and you can review the official media advisory from the ITC. The disqualification comes as a result of behavior Brooks displayed in Golovin, not the death of Kate, his 3-year old female dog.
many thanks aprn for issuing a amendment to your story, we fans of ramys know how much he loves his dogs and how much of a fair player he is. roxy (ramys brooks mum) reported for ramy that he had kate die after a sudden blast of cold wind that came from behind the team and kate just dropped. Ramy tried CPR (mouth to dog nose explelled air ventilation) to try and revive kate but she had already gone. when he arrived at safety he reported the death immediatly and wished to scratch from the race and be flown stright to nome as he was worried about the death, but the checkers couldnt raise HQ on the radio and informed him to take the dog with him to nome in his sled. this he did. as nome was the next checkpoint and finish of the race as per rules he had to stay 8 hours before being able to continue on the race, as nome is the finish this simply ment he could officialy sign in for his finish time. at no time does it appear that he tried to hide the death of kate from checkers or check point volenteers.
once again thanks for issuing an appology we as race fans appriciate it, these guys are all heros!