Hugh Neff won his second Yukon Quest in the past five years today.

The 48-year-old from Tok, Alaska, arrived at the finish line at Shipyards Park in Whitehorse at 2:25 p.m.

With his victory, Neff earns US$25,462.50, just over 20 per cent of the race’s $125,000 total purse.

Those winnings currently translate to CDN$35,218.

Defending champion Brent Sass trailed Neff by 17 kms, while 2013 and 2014 victor Allen Moore was an additional 16 kms back of Sass.

Neff won his first Yukon Quest in 2012 when he entered the Yukon capital a mere 26 seconds ahead of Moore, before finishing second in both the 2013 and 2014 races.

The current Quest is Neff’s 16th attempt at the 1,600-km journey that sees mushers travel between Fairbanks and Whitehorse.

After flying under the radar for much of the 2016 race, Neff grabbed a late lead Sunday, entering the race’s final two trail checkpoints of Carmacks and Braeburn in first place.

“What I’ve been trying to do today, really, is enjoy the moment,” he told reporters in Braeburn yesterday.

“This stuff is amazing, but in the flick of an eye it’s gone and it’s just history.”

Neff’s dog team currently consists of nine veteran huskies that led Neff to a fifth-place finish in last year’s race.

The team has had a group of rotating lead dogs, including eight-year-old George and six year-olds Mojito and Rosalita.

Many were born from the same mother, Annie, a relative of Neff’s 2012 Golden Harness winner Walter.

“A lot of time and effort went into creating this bond we have,” Neff said Sunday.

Neff added he has slept a total of two hours since leaving Dawson City on Friday.

Tagish Lake’s Ed Hopkins remains the top Canadian, reaching Braeburn at 8:36 this morning in fifth place.

Meanwhile, the musher ranked last in the race as of Sunday has been involuntarily withdrawn by race marshal Doug Grilliot.

Tony Angelo, 56, of Fairbanks arrived in Dawson City at 2 a.m. Sunday, the race’s halfway point and site of a 36-hour mandatory layover.

At that time, race leader Neff was resting in Carmacks, more than 440 kms ahead.

“He was given the option to scratch and declined, so I withdrew him from the race,” Grilliot told the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner.

“The ability that he had shown to travel down the trail the last 72 hours was not acceptable to me. It just was not going to be prudent to allow him to leave Dawson City for the next 200-mile leg given the travel times we were seeing.”

It took three days for Angelo to reach Dawson from Eagle – a distance of about 230 kms.

Angelo has now attempted the race three times with his team of Siberian huskies, but has never made it to the finish line.