Michelle Phillips has claimed fourth place arriving in Nome at 16:57 on Friday, day 11 of the 2025 Iditarod. Phillips, a Yukoner has a perfect 13 for 13 Iditarod record. Her first race was in 2010 and she’s happy to have placed in the top 5 for the first time in her Iditarod career. Her previous best finish came at 11th place.
Phillips didn’t start mushing until after she met her partner, Ed Hopkins. Ed is also an Iditarod veteran. The combination of working with elite canine athletes and traveling through the North appealed to Michelle. When her son turned 4 she decided to take on the 1,000 mile Yukon Quest. In that race she became hooked on long distance mushing.
Phillips, a veteran of ten Yukon Quest runs, won the Yukon quest 450 earlier in 2025. She’s also raced the Kobuk 440, Copper Basin 300, Taiga 300 and the Gin Gin 200. Phillips and Hopkins operate Tagish Lake Kennel home to 60 sled dogs and their touring operation.
Bailey Vitello rounds out the top 5 mushers for the 53rd Iditarod. Vitello has been working with Aaron Burmeister out of Nenana. Bailey, a Jr. Iditarod veteran, is now a perfect three for three in Iditarod runs. He claimed 24th in his 2024 rookie run and improved to 17th in 2024. This represents his first top five finish, a place Bailey wants to visit again in future races.
Vitello grew up in New Hampshire where his parents maintained a dog team. Bailey and his siblings were often a part of training runs. He ran his first one dog race at the age of two and made it his goal to be the youngest musher at the races he attended. When he was 14, Vitello and his father took a year off to train and race sled dogs and eventually ended up in Alaska for the Jr. Iditarod. Bailey found himself around like minded teenage mushers and enjoyed the experience immensely. Ten years later in 2022 he completed his Iditarod qualifiers and headed to Alaska to train for one year and run the 2023 Iditarod. One year has become three years and he now calls Nenana, Alaska home. Vitello trained with Aaron Burmeister. While this has been a time of rebuilding his dog team, Vitello says his team is filled with fire and energy and is thrilled to give them the chance to prove themselves in the Iditarod.
The team is a combination of his own dogs, dogs from his Dad’s Iditarod team and some from Aaron Burmeister. There were a few 10 year olds running with yearlings and Vitello called it really special because of this being the final race for the older dogs. Vitello improved 12 places from his previous finish.
