Turning Heads Kennel

04/13/2026

We hope to see our local friends on the 22nd in Seward 🥳

03/29/2026

Post Iditarod fun with the dogs, family, and friends. Magical day spent mushing to Knik Glacier.

03/23/2026

While we were celebrating Travis and Sam’s Iditarod finishes, Matt Riess and his father, Wade, headed north to Fairbanks with a team of Turning Heads Kennel dogs to take on the T-Dog 200.

Early this morning, Matt crossed the finish line and officially earned his first Iditarod qualifier - a huge milestone.

Congratulations, Matt!

03/21/2026

🥳🐾🥳

03/19/2026

Sam is in White Mountain. 🥳

He has made it to his mandatory 8-hour layover, but I would expect him to stay longer than that. Weather has gotten rough on the trail, and teams are being advised to wait for calmer conditions before heading on. The stretch between White Mountain and Nome includes the infamous Topkok Blowhole — a section known for brutal winds, drifting snow, and whiteout conditions that can make this final run anything but easy.

We are so proud of Sam. He’s stayed steady, kept a good head on his shoulders, and run a really admirable race.

Just 77 miles to go, buddy. Bring it home. 🏁

03/19/2026

♥️

Jeff Deeter, Paige Drobny and Wade Marrs rounded out the top five finishers.

03/18/2026

🐾Iditarod Update Day 9🐾
3/17/26 at 7:15pm

Travis is on his way to Nome. 🥳

Based on his current traveling speed, he should come in sometime around 2:00 AM AK time on 3/18

Behind him, there’s a tight race shaping up between Jeff Deeter, Paige Drobny, and Wade Marrs—that battle for position is far from settled.

At the other end of the race, Sam has checked in to the Shaktoolik checkpoint. Sam volunteered here in 2024. We’ll check back in on Sam’s race after Travis comes in under the burled arch.

As one of our favorite children’s books says:
Go, Dogs. Go! 🐾

03/17/2026

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03/17/2026

🐾Iditarod Update Day 8🐾
3/16/26 10:40pm

What a special run this has been. Travis has shown so much discipline and such thoughtful team management throughout this race. To say I’m proud is an understatement.

Training has been tough in every possible way this season for our team.

What’s showing up now is the result of really intentional team management from the start.

While it’s unlikely Travis will pass Jessie — something major would need to happen — this is the Iditarod. You never know what curveball Mother Nature might throw.

Behind Travis, several teams are starting to push and jockey for position. He has to be mindful of where they’re at — you never know who might be coming up from behind.

Regardless of how everything plays out, I am so happy — and relieved — that Travis is having such a great race.

The past several months have held a lot for our family. In August, Travis’s mom — and biggest fan — was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. He was able to make several trips to Minnesota to see her before she passed away at Christmas.

Less than three weeks later, we welcomed our son Emmett.

With so much going on in our lives, it would have been easy to take a year off. But the thing about dog mushing is that a season like this is built over years. This is what Travis loves. It’s what the dogs love. It’s what I love too.

And truthfully, it felt important for him to return to the trail. There’s a certain kind of solitude out there — shared only with your team — that’s hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. It can be a place to think, to process, and maybe even begin to make peace.

No matter how this all shakes out, we are proud. Just getting to the starting line was a victory.

Everything after that has been a gift.♥️

📸 of Travis at the Foothills Cabin outside Unalakleet yesterday. Photo by David Poyzer

03/16/2026

🐾Iditarod Update Day 9🐾
3/16/26 at 10:45am

Right now Jessie Holmes is in first place and has reached Koyuk. Travis arrived a few hours later and is currently running in second.

Just behind them is a strong chase pack that includes Paige, Mille, and Wade. Jeff Deeter isn’t too far back either and is looking strong.

At this stage of the Iditarod, the race often stops being about raw speed and becomes about how well teams were managed earlier in the trail.

One thing people might notice on the tracker is that Travis’s rests have recently been a little shorter than Jessie’s or Paige’s.

To understand the difference in strategy, it helps to go back to the beginning of the race and how the teams were managed. In long distance mushing, the race you see late is often shaped by decisions made hundreds of miles earlier.

Early on, Travis focused on shorter, more manageable runs. Jessie — and to a lesser extent Paige — pushed some longer runs. On paper those runs can look similar, or even better when followed by a long rest, but physiologically it’s very different for the dogs.

Every run creates a small amount of muscle stress. Rest helps repair that stress, but it never completely resets the clock. When teams make very long runs early in the race, the muscles accumulate fatigue that can’t fully be undone — even with a longer stop.

Over hundreds of miles, those small pieces of fatigue begin to stack up.

By keeping those early runs slightly shorter, Travis limited how much strain his dogs accumulated in each stretch. His rests might not have been quite as long, but the dogs also weren’t digging as deep into their reserves every time they left the checkpoint.

Now, later in the race, that management begins to show. His team has been gradually built into the workload, so they recover quickly and can handle shorter rests while still maintaining strong travel speeds.

It’s one of those parts of long-distance mushing that doesn’t always show up on the tracker — but it can make a big difference deep in the race.

So now the next question becomes strategy.

Does one of them stop in Elim? Or push straight through to White Mountain for the final mandatory eight-hour rest before the run to Nome?

Either way — the race is on. 🏁

03/16/2026

🐾Iditarod Update Day 8 🐾
3/15/26 at 9:15pm

Race strategies have finally collided on the Bering Sea coast just outside of Unalakeet.

Jessie Holmes took longer runs early that catapulted him to the front. Travis, meanwhile, has stuck to shorter runs up to this point. Now we see how those strategies play out.
Jessie has the position, but Travis likely has the stronger team — but we are running out of real estate.

Travis is currently stopped at the Foothills cabin, about 17 miles outside Shaktoolik, after getting within roughly 2–3 miles of Jessie. The cabin is sheltered and out of the wind — a good place for the team to get solid rest.

From here, teams drop onto the coast toward Shaktoolik and then on to Koyuk. This stretch of trail is often windy and can be tough on teams.

Holmes will likely stop in Shaktoolik or just beyond at the Island Shelter cabin. He’s been taking some long rests, but his team hasn’t quite bounced back the way you might expect if he were setting up for a really big run. Still, he has a relatively large group of dogs and could drop a few to gain speed.

Over the next few runs we may see some leapfrogging between Travis and Paige — and if we’re lucky, Holmes as well.

The real race taking shape right now is the one into White Mountain, where teams must take their final mandatory eight-hour rest before the run to Nome.

We’ve got ourselves a dog race.

📸 by me (Sarah Stokey) taken during the 2016 Iditarod

03/15/2026

🐾Iditarod Update Day 8 🐾
3/15/26 at 1pm

And now the coastal strategies begin to emerge.

Travis took a solid 3 hour 15 minute rest in Kaltag, a move that differed from much of the front pack.

This is one of those points in the race where strategy really starts to show. Some teams prefer to rest before tough trail, while others push through it and rest after.

The trail leaving Kaltag is usually slow going — mogul-ridden, hilly, and rough as teams come off the Yukon River and climb toward the tundra.

Travis chose to rest before tackling it.

Right now he has a lot going for him: strong run times, a big team, and plenty of rest in the bank. 👏🏻

Of course, Jessie Holmes remains the front runner, and he’s earned that position.

This next run down the Bering Sea coast is where weaknesses in teams can begin to reveal themselves and the true contenders emerge.

This final push down the coast is also where anything can happen. Ground blizzards are common out there, with nothing to protect teams from the wind.

Teams from behind — if they’re feeling strong — can make incredibly big pushes here and start closing the gap on teams that seem hours ahead.

What will happen 👀
This will be exciting to watch unfold!

Meanwhile on the home front, I’m getting the kids packed for Nome. We fly out tomorrow night.

Let’s just say… Nome isn’t exactly designed with toddlers in mind.

Wish me luck 😅

📸 of Travis near Koyuk in the 2025 Iditarod by Sir Raitto