
Photo courtesy of Wild and Free Mushing
EAGLE ISLAND, AK (KDLM) – Defending Iditarod champion Brent Sass scratched from the 2023 race in Eagle Island on Saturday due to health concerns.
“Unfortunately I had been sick the entire race with a bad cold, chest pain, body aches, sore throat all that progressively got worse as we traveled down the trail,” Saas wrote on Facebook. “I was giving everything I had to keep it positive and focus on my dogs so we could continue the race. Then two days ago some cracked teeth started giving me issues and over a 12-hour period turned into nearly unbearable pain. My body basically shut down and for two runs I just hung on.”
Iditarod officials said in a brief statement that Sass’s 11 dogs were in good shape, but Sass felt he could not properly care for them anymore due to his health.
Sass officially scratched at 7:42 a.m. Saturday.
Iditarod officials said a plane was headed to pick Sass up at Eagle Island and get him to medical care. His dog team would also be flown out.
The Eagle Island checkpoint is nearly 600 miles into the race, located on a remote stretch of the Yukon River between Grayling and Kaltag. The only building at Eagle Island is a cabin.
Sass. a 1998 graduate of Minnetonka High School, claimed his first Iditarod championship in 2022, mushing to the win after his sled, with a broken runner, tumbled down a hill during an intense windstorm in the final stretches of trail.

Latest News



