Post Time scores the Deputed Testamony Stakes. (Jeffrey Snyder /TMJC)
Dan Illman/Laurel Parl
LAUREL, Md. –- Post Time remained unbeaten from nine starts at Laurel Park as the reigning Maryland-bred Horse of the Year squeezed through in between rivals at the three-sixteenths pole to best Offaly Cool by 3 ½ lengths in the $125,000 Deputed Testamony Stakes for 3-year-olds and upward at 1 1/8 miles.
Owned by Mrs. Ellen Charles’s Hillwood Stable, the popular Post Time went off the prohibitive 1-10 favorite against four rivals brave enough to face him on a hot summer day at Laurel.
Post Time didn’t break the best under jockey Sheldon Russell, and he was immediately behind the eight ball from a pace perspective as multiple stakes-winner Speedyness set glacial fractions of 25.79 and 51.16 seconds.
Russell nudged Post Time into third position at the half-mile pole, and they opted to save ground in the pocket instead of racing outside in the clear.
Speedyness completed six furlongs in 1:15.57 as Offaly Cool slowly turned up the pressure on the outside. Meanwhile, Post Time raced in behind those foes and was in jeopardy of being bottled up when the real running started.
Russell spied a hole in between Speedyness and Offaly Cool, maneuvered his gray mount through, and Post Time’s class took over from there.
The favorite completed the distance in 1:51.36 and paid $2.20 to win. Speedyness finished third, a length behind Offaly Cool. Tell ‘Em I’m Comin and Curlin’s Malibu were next.
“It’s never going to be easy for him,” trainer Brittany Russell said, referencing Post Time’s late-running style. “Sometimes, these five-horse fields are the harder ones to win. He just gets the job done. I just am relieved.”
Post Time finished third in the Grade 3 Blame Stakes at Churchill Downs on May 31. The Blame was the local prep for today’s Grade 1 Stephen Foster Stakes, but Brittany Russell understands Post Time’s special connection with the racing fans in Maryland.
“It’s just nice to bring him home, and it’s just nice for Ellen,” Brittany Russell said. “She loves to win with him here. It’s cool that he’s done what he has here. He’s done a lot outside of Maryland as well, but if we bring him back, we know that it’s hopefully an easier spot for him to win a race. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
Bred by Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Bowman, Dr. Brooke Bowman, and Milton Higgins III, Post Time is a 5-year-old by Frosted out of stakes-winner Vielsalm by Fairbanks. A stakes-winner at two and three, Post Time took his show on the road last year, winning the Grade 2 Carter Stakes at Aqueduct and cracking the top three in such prestigious Grade 1 events as the Metropolitan Handicap and Whitney at Saratoga and the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile at Del Mar.
Brittany Russell mentioned the Grade 2, $1,000,000 Charles Town Classic at 1 1/8 miles on August 22 as a short-term goal for Post Time.
“I know it’s a little curveball from what he did last year, but we’re looking at what’s out there,” Russell said. “None of these spots are going to be easy, but I think it makes sense to try it. It’s not far from home. We can take him down there and work him under the lights.”
Post Time, never off the board from 18 starts, has banked $1,363,600.
