Yukon Quest Champs Anticipate a Great Run This Year

Today I attended a pre-race open house for mushers Sebastian Schnuelle and Michael Suprenaut, held by Bonne and Jim Foster. Luckily for me, my lovely hosts work with Suprenaut and I had an in to the party.

Not sure of what to expect, I was pleasantly surprised with the warm and welcoming Alaskans, who ushered me into the house filled with food, friends of the mushers and lots and lots of dogs! I immediately spotted Sebastian Schnuelle (you really can’t miss that hair or accent) and made my way around to interview the very successful musher (2009 Yukon Quest Champion, 2nd Place Iditarod). He sat leisurely on the couch with one of his dogs and welcomed my questions, but his pre-race attitude was anything but leisurely. “I’m very clearly here to race, not just to sight-see to Nome,” said Schnuelle, who is shooting to win this year’s race, but would not be disappointed with a top-5 finish.

I had the opportunity to speak with Michael Suprenaut, not a musher I anticipated talking to, but one who had shared some insight on the immense preparations made prior to the race. In listing all the to-do’s on his pre-race checklist he said “You get the food drops done and then you don’t want to ease off the training.” Mentioning the toll the storm took on his race last year (held him up for 3 days), Suprenaut is looking to decrease his time from 15 days last year to about 10 1/2 this time around.

A musher I didn’t expect to see, but was so excited to talk to happened to be at the party was this year’s Yukon Quest champion Hans Gatt.  He was busy pulling all his dogs out of his truck as I approached him for an interview, but he had some exciting things to say about his career in mushing. Over the past couple of weeks, several big names in mushing have announced their resignation, or significant cut-backs in their racing. Names like Lance Mackey and Jeff King have already declared that this year is bound to be the last with this field of experienced competitors. Gatt, on the other hand, has yet to join the retirement bandwagon. “I don’t want to talk of retiring before the race,” Gatt said, though he did admit that after 22 years of career mushing he might not run any 1,000 mile races after this one.

Who knows what the standings might look like this year. With old faces possibly on their way out and new mushers anxious to pull up in the ranks, one thing is sure – there were plenty of dogs just getting into their career and enjoying the ‘good life’ of the pre-party before a week or two of running their little hearts out on the trail.

-Loren Liden for Iditablog.com