CARMACKS For the first time in five years, a sled dog has died on the trail of the Yukon Quest.

Jewel, a five-year-old female dog on Yuka Honda's team, was pronounced dead upon her arrival in Carmacks at 10:51 p.m. Sunday.

The musher was understandably devastated that it happened, said Vern Starks, the race's head veterinarian.

Starks said estimates suggest the dog died at approximately 10 a.m. Sunday about 80 kilometres outside of the second checkpoint in Carmacks.

Honda had left the first checkpoint at Braeburn at 6:45 a.m.

She had travelled approximately three kilometres down the trail when her leaders pulled back and became tangled with the swing dogs behind them, said race marshall Mike McCowan.

Honda placed snow hooks down on either side of her sled before working her way up the line and untangled the dogs, he said, relaying to the media the story told to him by Honda this morning.

On the way back down the line, Honda noticed Jewel had a slight tangle with the dog in front of her and stopped to fix the problem.

While she was working on the tangle, her team, rowdy from just departing the checkpoint, began hitting the line really hard and eagerly, and the snow hooks popped.

The dog directly behind Honda rammed into her, knocking her to the snow. Unable to grab a hold, she watched the team and sled fly past her, said McCowan.

Honda began to pursue the team down the Quest trail by foot.

Rookie musher Brent Sass came up on her, running down the trail. Upon hearing of the lost team, he loaded Honda onto his sled and the two began to chase down the dogs.

Sass was involved in the 2006 rescue of Quest 300 musher Randy Chappel off of Eagle Summit after he had lost his dog team coming down the mountain in whiteout conditions.

They were just rolling, and when they finally did take over the team, the team was shut down and stopped, McCowan said of this year's chase after Honda's dogs.

When they reached the sled, the two mushers realized Jewel was down on the ground and had died, said McCowan.

A necropsy of the animal conducted Sunday night revealed Jewel had died from choking on her own vomit, said Quest veterinary pathologist Matti Kiupel.

She basically brought food back up from her stomach into her oral cavity and then that food was back-inhaled, Kiupel told a press conference in Carmacks this morning.

There were no underlying problems with the dog, he said. Its demise was likely a combination of extreme stress and the high speed of the team, impairing her ability to breath or expel the vomit.

When a driver isn't on the runners of the sled, a team has a massive object swinging around behind it on the trail, said McCowan, upsetting the dogs' balance and jerking them around.

When that happens, your heart just drops to the bottom of your feet, he said.

McCowan said Honda arrived into the checkpoint crying on Sunday night.

She'd had a long time on the back of the sled going into Carmacks. Race officials already had word of the death before her arrival. Sass reached the checkpoint an hour and 16 minutes ahead of her.

Honda was permitted to feed and bed her team as well as get her own rest before being interviewed about the incident.

'We kind of want to give her the time kind of to get over it a little bit or at least cope with it,' said Starks.

Honda's team was made entirely of dogs from 1987 Quest champ Bill Cotter's kennel, who is also serving as her handler.

McCowan said he had a long conversation with Cotter before Honda's arrival.

'He just pretty much told me that All I'm going to tell her is that I want you to to get that dog team to Fairbanks.''

This is Honda's second attempt at the Yukon Quest. In the 2006 race, she was one of the five mushers rescued off of Eagle Summit by a military helicopter.

Finishing the 1,600-kilometre race is a dream of the Japanese national.

Cotter and Honda have both declined to do interviews with the media at this time.

Honda readied her team to continue on down the trail this morning. She collected hot water in the common room at the Carmacks recreation centre, but remained quiet and almost non-responsive as people in the room spoke pleasantly and comfortingly to her. Occasionally, she would nod or reply back to them softly.

Honda's team of 12 pulled out of Carmacks at 8:30 this morning.

'For her to continue on, I think, is a good thing for her and good thing for the dogs,' said McCowan. 'I saw her off. She's going to McCabe. She's going to Pelly. She's going to keep going forward.'

A final report regarding Jewel's death will be available in approximately three weeks.

The last deaths for the Quest happened in 2002, when two dogs died on the trail.

Bill Pinkham's dog died after it was caught in a tangle coming down Eagle Summit.

Christopher Knott had a dog die in what was described as an 'instant death' when the animal dropped on the way into Pelly Crossing.