Mitch Seavey having to run the iditarod. Mitch Seavey Mitch Seavey (born 1959) is an American dog musher, who won the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race across the U.S. state of Alaska in 2004, 2013 and 2017. At age 57, Seavey is the oldest person to win the Iditarod in 2017 (surpassing his record in 2013 at age 53). His son, Dallas Seavey, won the 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2016 Iditarod; his 2012 win made him the youngest winner ever. Seavey competed in his first Iditarod in 1982, and has completed every race since 1995. In the 1995 race, he started in
Sled dog racing the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, but it did not gain official event status. Sled dogs, known also as sleighman dogs, sledge dogs, or sleddogs, are a highly trained dog type that are used to pull a dog sled, a wheel-less vehicle on runners, over snow or ice, by means of harnesses and lines. Sled dog races include "sprint" races over relatively short distances of 4 to 100 miles, mid-distance races from 100 to 300 miles, or long-distance races of 300 to over 1,000 miles (Iditarod). Sprint races frequently are two or three-day events with heats run on successive days