Post Time winning the Polynesian. (Jim McCue/MJC)
Multiple Graded Winner Training Up to Nov. 2 Race
Trainer Brittany Russell: ‘We’re All Really Excited’
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David Joseph/Maryland Jockey Club
LAUREL, Md. – Hillwood Stable’s Maryland-bred and based multiple graded-stakes winner Post Time, dominant in capturing the one-mile Polynesian last month at Laurel Park, will make his next start in the $1 million Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile (G1).
Trainer Brittany Russell confirmed that the 4-year-old Post Time, by two-time Breeders’ Cup Classic (G1) participant and multi-millionaire Grade 1 winner Frosted, is bound for and will train up to the Dirt Mile Nov. 2 at Del Mar, having emerged from his 11 ½-length romp in the Sept. 14 Polynesian in good order.
“We’re heading toward the Dirt Mile. We’re going to take him out there. The Polynesian was the prep,” she said before saddling a fifth straight winner at Laurel with 2-year-old filly first-time starter Gotanothathingcomn ($4.40) in Thursday’s Race 4. She added a second winner, 3-year-old gelding Derbyness ($5.80), also ridden by Jevian Toledo, in Race 8. “We’re all really excited.”
The Polynesian was the sixth stakes win for Post Time, five of them coming at Laurel including his first graded triumph in the Feb. 17 General George (G3), which was the last time he had raced over his home track. He then won the Carter (G2) and was second in the Westchester (G3) at Aqueduct and finished second in the Met Mile (G1) and third in the Whitney (G1) – his two-turn debut – at Saratoga.
“We got him a win. It was great to get him back in the winner’s circle at home,” Russell said. “I think he got enough out of it, which is always a concern when you’re thinking about the next step. There’s still something left in there. From a mental standpoint, I think we did what we wanted to accomplish. He thinks he’s the man. He came out of the race very, very good and that was sort of the goal.”
Post Time returned to the work tab for the first time since the Polynesian Wednesday over a fast main track at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md., where Russell’s string is overseen by assistant trainer and exercise rider Emma Wolfe, going four furlongs in 49.60 seconds.
“He’s great. He’s been training pretty aggressively since he ran,” Russell said. “That was a pretty easy race for him, so he was back to work quick. I was going to breeze him last week, but we got a lot of rain, and I was waiting for a good track. He did it easy, well within himself. It was kind of a great first work back off of the run.”
Post Time has the second-most points on the Dirt Mile points leaderboard with 22, five fewer than Preakness (G1) and Pennsylvania Derby (G1) winner Seize the Grey. National Treasure, Three Technique and Japan-based Crown Pride have all won automatic qualifying races.
Millionaires National Treasure and Skippylongstocking are also among horses pointing to the Dirt Mile. After running second to National Treasure in the Met Mile, Post Time finished ahead of both Skippylongstocking (fifth) and National Treasure (sixth) in the Whitney.
“We’ve been careful in how we’ve raced him. We haven’t overraced him or anything and he seems to be maintaining that level,” Russell said. “I feel like in a sense he needs to take a little bit more of a step up, and I’m hopeful that he can do it on the right day.”
Russell said her husband, champion jockey Sheldon Russell, will retain the call in the Dirt Mile. He has ridden 10 consecutive races on Post Time, who owns nine wins, two seconds, two thirds and $997,910 in purse earnings from 13 career starts.
“My first runner out there, we’re doing it together,” Brittany Russell said. “Even if he wasn’t going to be on him, it’s the team. The fact that he’s ridden him, and he’s had so much success on him, it’s great.”
The Dirt Mile was added to the Breeders’ Cup lineup in 2007 and has been won the past two years by 2023 champion older dirt male and Horse of the Year Cody’s Wish. Maryland-bred Knicks Go won the Dirt Mile in 2020 and was champion older dirt male and Horse of the Year in 2021.
This year’s Dirt Mile will go off as Race 4, the first of nine consecutive Breeders’ Cup races on Nov. 2, with a post time of 3 p.m. (EST).
In addition to the Russells it will be the first Breeders’ Cup starter for Hillwood’s Ellen Charles, the octogenarian granddaughter of influential businesswoman and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post who has campaigned such horses as Grade 3 winners Bandbox and Cordmaker and Maryland turf champion Phlash Phelps. Charles also bred Russell-trained filly Hello Beautiful, another state champion that is one of just seven horses in 38 years to win three Maryland Million races.
Maryland’s champion 2-year-old male of 2022, when he won his first stakes in the Maryland Juvenile, Post Time was undefeated through four starts when he left home for the first time to run in the 2023 Perryville, finishing third. His other four road trips, all to New York, have also come by van.
“He’s going to fly out the week before, so he has a couple extra days to settle in. He’s a classy horse and he really enjoys traveling but putting him on a plane is something I had to filter into our plans. I just wanted to give us a little extra time,” Russell said. “This horse has been such a treat for us, and we’ve had so much fun with Ellen.
“I remember when we were traveling to Keeneland for the Perryville, taking what we thought then was a big leap of faith. That was his first sort of real test when we all traveled to Kentucky, and now we’re looking to run him in the Breeders’ Cup,” she added. “It’s super special. Ellen’s been so good to us and for her to have a horse like this … she’s had a lot of good horses, but to go to this level is just pretty amazing.”
Russell, 35, has enjoyed tremendous success since going out on her own in 2018, seeing annual increases across the board capped by a personal best 687 starters, 177 wins and $7,999,367 in purse earnings in 2023, when she became the first woman trainer in history to lead Maryland’s annual standings with 118 wins.
Other graded wins for Peach Bottom, Pa. native Russell have come with Doppelganger in the Carter (G1) and Full Count Felicia in the Suwannee River (G3) in 2023, and Wondrwherecraigis in the 2021 Bold Ruler (G3).
“My family, they’re not horse people. They probably still struggle to understand what I do with this horse racing thing,” she said. “Everyone always asks, ‘Are you going to ever have one in the Kentucky Derby?’ I just want to get to the Breeders’ Cup, but to get to the Breeders’ Cup with a horse that’s been so good and so consistent for us, it’s special. I feel like he’s taking us here. We’re not pushing him to get there.”
Russell, who won four races Sunday at Laurel and is a fall meet-leading 16-for-35 (46 percent), anticipates running three horses in the 39th Jim McKay Maryland Million Oct. 12 at Laurel – Bosserati in the $100,000 Turf Sprint, Binnie in the $100,000 Distaff and Biscuitwiththeboss in the $100,000 Lassie.
