Except this time it's not just a two-man duel.

Two years ago, King appeared on his way to a fifth win in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race with a faster team when he was snookered by Mackey, who went on to win.

Saturday, Mackey, the defending champion with three straight wins, again snatched the lead from King, leaving the four-time champ behind in the Kaltag checkpoint where he rested his dog team for about four hours.

King had been leading the race but Mackey made his move shortly after noon, leaving Kaltag at 12:35 p.m. after a brief seven minutes at the village where the trail leaves the Yukon River.

King, who beat Mackey to Kaltag by 46 minutes, arriving at 11:42 a.m., resisted the urge to give chase and didn't leave until 3:33 p.m.

Hans Gatt of Whitehorse, the fifth musher to reach Kaltag but the second to leave, followed Mackey's example. The recent winner of the 1,000-mile Yukon Quest, he spent 14 minutes at the checkpoint before hitting the 90-mile stretch of trail that leads to Unalakleet and the Norton Sound at 2:45 p.m.

Hugh Neff of Tok, meanwhile, followed King's strategy. He arrived in Kaltag four minutes after Mackey but didn't leave until 4:09, giving his dogs a rest of 3 hours and 37 minutes. Sterling's Mitch Seavey rested his dogs even longer, leaving Kaltag at 5:25 after a rest of 4:21.

Just under five hours separated the five frontrunners when the left Kaltag in the 1,000-mile race from Anchorage to Nome. They were expected to hit Unalakleet late Saturday night or, more likely, early this morning.

Unalakleet is about 260 miles from the finish line in Nome.

It was unclear whether Mackey planned to rest somewhere along the trail to Unalakleet or if he planned to make a marathon run of 130 miles from Nulato to Unalakleet. He mushed past the Tripod Flats cabin 35 miles beyond Kaltag; that cabin, plus Old Woman Cabin another 15 miles toward the coast, are maintained by the BLM.

In 2008, Mackey and King were battling for the lead when King fell victim to an old musher's trick in Elim, just 123 miles from the finish. Mackey arrived at the checkpoint three minutes ahead of King, drank coffee and acted like he was settling in for a long nap. He told checkpoint volunteers to wake him in an hour. But with King snoring, Mackey sneaked out ahead of his opponent and eventually won the race.

King would like this year's race to end differently. The 54-year-old Denali Park musher has said this will be his last Iditarod.

Mackey, 39, who lives in Fairbanks, is a four-time Quest champion and finished second this year in the race between Alaska and Canada. The only musher to pull off an Idita-Quest championship -- winning both the Iditarod and the Quest in the same year, something he's done twice -- Mackey has said this will be the last year he does both races in the same year.