Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes wins Iditarod sled dog race again, rewards canine team with large steaks

Former reality TV star Jessie Holmes cruised to a repeat victory in the Iditarod, the roughly 1,000-mile sled dog race in Alaska.

Holmes guided his dog team across the finish line Tuesday night in the old Gold Rush town of Nome, a Bering Sea coastal community.

The race started March 8 in Willow, a day after the ceremonial start was held in Anchorage. The course took dog teams and their mushers over two mountain ranges, along the frozen Yukon River and across the unpredictable Bering Sea ice.

Holmes passed out large ribeye steaks to his dogs after winning the race, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

“It’s a blessing to be out here. I was just so full of gratitude and gratefulness being welcomed into all these communities, and being out in all this beautiful country with the most amazing dog team I’ve ever seen,” he said, according to the newspaper.

Holmes, a former cast member on the National Geographic reality show “Life Below Zero,” is the third competitor in the 54-year history of the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race to repeat the year after winning for the first time. The others were Susan Butcher in 1986-1987 and Lance Mackey in 2007-2008. Both went on to win four titles.

Holmes told The Associated Press before the Iditarod that this year’s race was the most important of his career. “That’s hard to put that on yourself because you got to live with that pressure every day,” Holmes said. “And if I do not make it, it is going to absolutely crush me.”

He will pocket about $80,000 for this year’s win, up from the $57,000-plus he took home last year. This year’s purse was boosted by financial support from Norwegian billionaire Kjell Rokke, who participated in a newly created, noncompetitive amateur category. Rokke reached Nome on Monday, under rules that allowed him to have outside support from a former Iditarod champ, flexible rest periods and to swap out dogs.

Holmes’ first Iditarod was in 2018. His seventh place finish earned him rookie of the year honors. He has now raced in the Iditarod nine times, earning seven top 10 finishes. He’s been in the top five the last five races.

He appeared for eight years on the National Geographic reality show “Life Below Zero,” which chronicled the hardships of people living in rural Alaska.

Holmes used the money he earned from the show to buy better dogs and equipment, and also was able to purchase raw land near Denali National Park and Preserve. A carpenter by trade, he’s carved his homestead in the wilderness, where his closest neighbor is about 30 miles away.

Rokke, who now lives in Switzerland, provided $100,000 in additional prize money and $170,000 to Alaska Native villages that serve as checkpoints. Another musher in the noncompetitive “expedition” class, Canadian entrepreneur Steve Curtis, pledged $50,000 to help youth sports programs in the villages. Curtis did not finish the race.

The race’s biggest critic, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has claimed that more than 150 dogs have died in the history of the Iditarod. It urged Rokke to spend his money to help dogs rather than put them through “hazards and misery.”

The Iditarod has never provided its count of dogs who have died on the race.

One dog has died in this year’s race, a 4-year-old female named Charly on musher Mille Porsild’s team, the Iditarod said in a statement Tuesday. A necropsy will be conducted.

Thirty-four competitive mushers started, matching the inaugural 1973 race for the second fewest in race history. The retirements of many longtime mushers and the high cost of supplies, such as dog food, have kept the fields small this decade.

Born and raised in Alabama, Holmes left at age 18 and worked as a carpenter in Montana for three years. He arrived in Alaska in 2004 and found adventure running dogs on a remote location of the Yukon River. He lived for many years in the town of Nenana and made friends with elders who had decades of mushing experience, according to the Anchorage Daily News.

In a 2024 profile published by CBS affiliate WIAT, Holmes talked about how he first fell in love with dog sled racing after meeting a neighbor who was involved in the sport.

“I just fell in love with the lifestyle,” Holmes said at the time. “I fell in love with the dogs out in the wilderness.”