Musher Emily Robinson and her lead dogs. Photos courtesy of Knik 200
Thirteen seconds separated teenager Emily Robinson and race leader Brent Sass as the pair approached the homestretch of the Knik 200 in an online video posted Sunday.
Sass, the 2022 Iditarod champion, must have felt like a sitting duck. He desperately ran up a small hill while pushing his sled. He then kicked and ski-poled and glanced over his shoulder as Robinson, his junior by 28 years, and her powerhouse team of 10 huskies followed in hot pursuit.
“Hut! Hut! Good dogs, good dogs,” Robinson said as she continued to reel Sass in. (The video, with 2,900 views and counting, can be seen HERE).
The pass, not caught on video, occurred shortly thereafter and according to Robinson involved some “technical difficulties.” But Robinson managed to get by Sass’ team on the narrow trail in the woods approaching Knik Lake.
The finish stretch, captured by Kale Casey Live on YouTube, then showed Robinson, led by leaders Urchin and Vickie, cruise under the finish banner. Sass followed 65 seconds later.
“Got my butt beat in the last mile,” Sass said good-naturedly to onlookers before sharing a hug with Robinson. “Congratulations, awesome race. That was epic. I was fearing that sled coming behind me … for like the last 50 miles.”
Replied Robinson: “I thought I wasn’t going to catch you.”
She only had the opportunity because the race committee of the Knik 200, officially named the Knik 200 Joe Redington Sr. Memorial Sled Dog Race, changed its rules to allow those under age 18 to compete provided they have finished two qualifying events.
The 16-year-old Robinson, representing the Robinson Racing Kennel near Nenana, had never raced farther than 150 miles. She won $5,000 and a pair of beaver mitts.
“To be able to run in a race like this as a teenager is a very honorable thing,” Robinson said in her acceptance speech during the awards ceremony at the Broken Boat Knik Bar & Grill. “And to be competing with Yukon Quest winners and Iditarod winners and everything else in-between is such an honor and such a privilege, and to be receiving encouraging words of advice from those people is amazing.”
Knik 200 podium finishers Ryan Redington, Brent Sass, Emily Robinson, Amanda Otto and Travis Beals. Photo courtesy of Knik 200.
Robinson trailed Sass by seven minutes after the first 100-mile leg. Following a mandatory six-hour rest, she set off chasing him at 2:39 a.m. Sunday. Less than 11 hours later, she finished with the narrow victory in an elapsed time of 26 hours, 15 minutes and 52 seconds. Her speed (not including the mandatory rest) averaged nearly 10 miles per hour.
Sass earned $4,000 with his time of 26:16:57.
Ryan Redington, the 2023 Iditarod champion, took third barely a minute ahead of Amanda Otto and Travis Beals. All three were around 40 minutes behind Robinson.
The stellar field included past Knik 200 champions Eddie Burke, Jr. (sixth this year), and Nic Petit (eighth), along with Iditarod veterans Michelle Phillips (seventh), Wade Marrs (13th) and others.
Robinson didn’t come out of obscurity to topple them. In addition to claiming the last two Junior Iditarods, she won the Willow 150 and Alpine Creek Excursion 64-mile race against adult competition last season along with the Knik 100 last month. But she’d never faced a field as stacked as this year’s Knik 200.
“I’m so, so proud of my dogs and what they did,” Robinson said in her acceptance speech. “I was not expecting to end up where I ended up.”
Robinson’s father Wally, a 2001 Iditarod finisher, first took Emily mushing when she was three years old, according to her Junior Iditarod biography.
“By the time I was four, he had built a small dog sled and would tie a rope to the sled so I could glide behind him,” Robinson wrote. “I would watch his every move in front of me and copy them. At that early age, I fell in love with dog mushing.”
Robinson also credited her family, who cheered wildly when she first came into view at Knik Lake, with the success she’s experiencing.
“To be able to do this as a family and to take care of our dogs is something that I really, really do love, and they support me as well as my dogs,” she said.
Knik 200 race marshal Donna Russell-Swope also praised Robinson in the Kale Casey Live broadcast.
“She is amazing,” Russell-Swope said. “To watch a young musher like her win, it’s beautiful.”