Keaton Loebrich: Star Gazers Racing - Iditarod '25

Hey y'all I'm Keaton, and together with my wife Erika, we have started Star Gazers Racing based just north of Fairbanks, Alaska. We started this kennel last year with just 8 dogs and the intention of running a few small races, but we ended up acquiring 6 more dogs, without really trying (which seems to happen once you get into sled dogs ha-ha). So we now have 18 beautiful Alaskan Huskies that we call our own. Ever since I first started dreaming about mushing, running the Iditarod has been my biggest goal and everything we have done the past few years has been working towards that goal.

Two year was my first season running sled dogs and racing; I ran in the Solstice 50, Willow 300, Percy DeWolfe Memorial Mail Run, and the Yukon Quest Alaska 300. Our goal was to complete every race we started and we did. We may have gotten the Red Lantern in the Willow, Percy and Quest, but we crossed that finish line with a happy and healthy team.

last year our goals changed a bit, now that we had a bit more knowledge and experience we wanted to be more competitive. Once we acquired the 14, we decided to do the Yukon Quest again. Our entire training season this year went towards preparing for the Quest. After a very challenging race we finished in 4th place!!! I was extremely proud of our dogs and everything that we had accomplished. We were competing against a lot of great teams, which have way more experience, people, funds, sponsors, and dogs than we do.

With it just being myself and Erika, we have a few extra challenges to overcome, Erika is working full time and I do part time tours with our dogs in town at Trail Breaker Kennel to help provide the financial means, I train the dogs full time and Erika tends the cabin and does all that typical home front stuff. Just between work, training and caring for regular everyday things that need done, we quickly run out of hours in the day, so race prep ends up getting pushed back to the last minute. Don't get us wrong, we absolutely love the life we have chosen and watching our dogs grow and begin to fulfill their greatest potential gives us joy beyond expression.

Owning and racing sled dogs is expensive, we do our best because we were both raised to work hard and earn what we want. It has been very difficult for us to set this up because it feels like the easy way out. Thankfully we have some friends who have showed us that we don't have to do it alone, while there are folks out there that can't stand on the back of a sled and drive a team or lug around big drop bags during a race to be a handler or stand for hours at a saw cutting meat for meals and snacks, they still want to walk alongside us and help us fulfill our dream in any way they can, monetarily or otherwise. So we have decided to set up this page as a way for folks to help us reach our ultimate goal, Iditarod.

Running the Iditarod is extremely expensive. Not including all the training and preparing for the race over a calendar year, just the expenses to run the race itself is very vast. First off the sign-up fee alone is $4000, we will need around 30 sets of booties for the dogs for the race which is about $3000, and fuel for the cooker is close to $1000. All our resupplies for the race need to be sent ahead to all the different checkpoints along the trail via airplane, which is expensive. Then, if and when we come across the finish line I have to fly myself, my gear, the sled, and all the dogs back from Nome to Anchorage which is very expensive.