Jesse Terry wins Rookie of the Year

Jesse Terry at the Ceremonial Start of Iditarod 54.
Anchorage, Alaska. March 7, 2026.

Nome welcomed a fourteenth team at 3:06am AKDST Thursday. The first of Iditarod 54's rookie class sped down the street and under the burled arch, their musher all smiles. Jesse Terry and his team looked unfazed by the wind and cold that the race threw at them over the last ten days, the musher's trademark smile didn't waver even when asked how he liked the wind in the Topkok Hills.

Terry spent much of the race running as the third highest placed rookie. While rookies Kevin Hansen and Sam Martin duked it out for the first half of the race, Jesse managed a steady pace. Most fans and analysts were counting him out. By the time the teams finished their run on the Yukon, Sam Martin was the favorite to take the prize for Rookie of the Year. 

Then the coast. Jesse hit the coast and it was like he'd been here before. Like many of the top teams, Terry and his team openned up the throttle. Terry had "built a monster" and he was unleashing it. While Martin had a sizeable lead heading into Shaktoolik, Jesse's team passed Hansen and closed the gap to just two hours behind Martin by the Norton Sound. Martin held off Terry through the run to Koyuk, but it was run to Elim where Terry really let the dogs cut loose.

Terry caught Martin and then just outside Elim he passed Martin, and from there it was nothing but open trail for the rookie. The team sped up. They crossed Golovin Bay and ran up to White Mountain and his final mandatory 8. 

The weather reports for Wednesday Night into Thursday morning had many wondering how the rookies would fare as they left the comfort of the mandatory stop. Winds in the Topkok Hills are legendary. Races have ended in spectacular fashion (with mushers recounting their race like veteran warriors share war stories) even the most trail hardened teams have been stalled on the run from White Mountain to Safety.

But Jesse and his team carried out their mission in spectacular fashion. The musher would recount that the wind caught his sled and threw him a few times in the hills, but the GPS only showed a competent team making good time through the worst winds of the race. Fans keeping track of his final 77 miles were constantly having to redo the math to guess his finish time. 

Terry was greeted in Nome by his wife Mary England who repeatedly embraced him and repeatedly told him how proud she was of him. Terry gave all praise to his team for the job they managed. He didn't know how fast they'd run the last leg as he'd misplaced his GPS (which he said was probably a good thing because he'd have been very annoying constantly looking at it). 

Jesse was one of the favorites to win Rookie of the Year and many who know or have followed his career were not surprised by his run up the coast and final placement. Terry is well liked and respected by those who have mushed with him and raced against him and Thursday morning was all cheers, well wishes, and celebration all over social media.

Rookie of the Year comes with a special trophy and a bonus $2000 on top of the prize money 14th place recieves. He does have the fastest time (so far) from Safety to Nome for this year's race, however it's likely his placement keeps him from qualifying (small field means it isn't the top twenty who are eligible, it's a math equation now). 

Sam Martin was the next rookie in at 6:59am AKDST with less than a minute to spare before veteran (and former Rookie of the Year winner) Josi Shelley finished right behind him, making it the closest race within a race for Iditarod 54 (again, so far). Kevin Hansen is currently on his 8 hour mandatory rest and will lead the next batch of rookies into the finish, but the winds are continuing to be a factor as they always are (and they always seem to wait for the rookies and back of the pack).

It's another wild day out on the Iditarod with many finishes still to come.

Samantha LaLonde, rookie of the year

Samantha LaLonde's team at the Ceremonial Start
of Iditarod 53. March 1, 2025. Anchorage, AK.

The first rookie musher crossed under the burled arch early Sunday morning, becoming the 2025 Rookie of the Year. Samantha LaLonde of Farmington Hills, MI finished he race in 12 days, 14 hours, 20 minutes, and 56 seconds. LaLonde had nine dogs on her team when she came into Nome, leading the way was LaLonde's "baby girl" Gibbs. 

Samantha was running a team made up of 15 dogs from Dallas Seavey's kennel, and one very special dog all her own. Gibbs is Samantha's sled dog and Gibbs was a star leader in her Iditarod team leading in single lead for much of the final run into Nome (except when they hit the crowds and Gibbs got shy). Sam was incredibly proud from even before the race began to speak on how Gibbs (named for an NCIS character) had made her Iditarod team. For her pup to make it not all the way but to lead for much of it, the musher couldn't do anything but beam while talking about her.

From Nulato to Nome Sam was running with injury. As her team left the checkpoint of Nulato, Sam recounted, her powerful team took off a little too aggressively and she was slammed up against the berm they'd been parked next to and she "stepped wrong" causing an injury she was very worried was a broken foot. According to reports by her partner posting on Sam's Instagram page, "the gimp" was dealing with a sprained ankle. Another report later in the race said that her foot was so swollen she was unable to get her boot off. Mushers, right?

While Sam was out on the trail with her always jovial demeanor, back home her partner was gathering his own following on Instagram. Tucker's updates gave more insight into his and Sam's personalities than they did any sort of real race analysis, and fans ate it up. From putting a humorous spin to an injury, to sharing what Sam is eating on the trail (thank God for beef sticks), to even sharing what family and friends do in Nome as they wait for their hero to finish. Fans. Ate. It. Up. 

Samantha has worked toward her Iditarod moment for many years, she worked with several kennels before landing a couple of years ago in Dallas Seavey's kennel. Sam worked through her qualifiers, sometimes having the Iditarod champion handle for her in those races, and managed to be the lone representative of Dallas' kennel in the 2025 race. For many of the dogs on the team they've worked with Samantha to get to their Iditarod moment as well. Many rookies come to Iditarod in this same way, but all that hard work is their own and their bond with the dogs is strong.

For Samantha she was not focused on being the first rookie to finish. Her schedule was not one that in a normal year would be up there with the top, but she found herself comfortably in the middle of the pack of both rookies and veterans. As the unexpected difficulties of the trail compounded on the many... many.... MANY miles on the Yukon River, Samantha saw her position steadily rise. Her team managing every obstacle even after their musher didn't and injured herself. As she muscled through pain (imagine having to stand on a sprain on sled runners for hours at a time, and not always on smooth trail) the dogs kicked into that gear all too familiar after a week on the trail. Soon Samantha found herself running with rookie front runner Emily Ford. 

Though the two women had different schedules for their Iditarod, they found themselves on the coast together. As they made their way into Shaktoolik they formed a plan that they would run across the Norton Sound into Koyuk. A pact that many teams make as they cross the most anxiety ridden portion of the trail no matter what route they've taken to get there. They rested in Koyuk together, leaving just minutes apart, and there their schedules once again diverged. Sam was now going to do somewhat longer runs knowing her team could handle it as long as they kept a steady pace. They had an 8 hour mandatory layover in White Mountain and then a 77 mile jaunt to the finish. Ford chose a bit more of a conservative approach and remains on the trail Sunday morning.

Samantha LaLonde at 2:20am AKDT finished as the top rookie, perhaps not as planned, but certainly as earned as if he had. Her blue eyes bright, her smile wide. She laughed at some of the questions asked her by Nicolle the Clipboard Lady, she thanked "everybody" and then named some of them Dallas, Tucker, Her Parents, Tucker's parents... everybody. And the dogs. Those awesome nine dogs that took her all the way and the 16 who all worked to make sure their musher could get to Nome. 

Before Tucker signed off from Sam's account he announced that he and Sam have started their own kennel and encouraged all of their fans, old and new, to follow their journey post Iditarod.