Trainer Has Stakes Winner Desvio in Sunday’s Bald Eagle Derby
Post Time Facing Biggest Test Yet in Saturday’s G1 Whitney
LAUREL, MD – Madison Meyers, for one, was sorry to flip her calendar this week. Racing primarily at Laurel Park, the Middleburg, Va.-based trainer enjoyed one of the best months of her career in July, winning with five of 13 starters to go along with three seconds and two thirds.
Having won four times through the first six months of the season, Meyers’ July enabled her to reach a single-season high for victories with 51 starters, having gone 8-for-69 in 2023. Her horses have earned $406,253 in purses, putting her on course to surpass another personal best of $462,584 set in 2022.
“It’s been a really nice July,” Meyers said. “We have a relatively small racing stable and I’m lucky I’ve got, pound for pound, serious riders and really good staff here at home and they always put the horse first. Everybody here just loves the horses. There’s been a lot of good energy around the barn, and I think horses feed off that. We have a very supportive group of owners that keep the barn morale high.”
Meyers is hoping to carry that momentum into August with Stonelea Stable and Bonnie Rye Stable’s Desvio in Sunday’s $100,000 Bald Eagle Derby for 3-year-olds scheduled for 1 1/8 miles on the Fort Marcy turf course. It is the last of three $100,000 stakes on a nine-race program, preceded by the 1 1/16-mile Searching for 3-year-old fillies on the Kelso turf course and 1 1/16-mile Caesar’s Wish for fillies and mares 3 and up on the main track.
Through seven starts, Desvio is already the second-richest horse Meyers has trained and one of five with six figures in purse earnings at $168,680. Leading the way is Grateful Bred ($346,200), a two-time stakes winner that also gave Meyers her first win on a recognized flat track July 11, 2020 at Laurel. Previously she had won a 2016 amateur race at Great Meadow and a 2019 steeplechase event in Aiken, S.C.
Desvio enters the Bald Eagle Derby off back-to-back turf wins after four straight races on dirt, over which he graduated Feb. 11 at Laurel, his third start. The gray or roan Yoshida gelding beat older horses in a 1 1/16-mile allowance over soft going at odds of 38-1 on the undercard of the Preakness Stakes (G1) May 18 at historic Pimlico Race Course, becoming a stakes winner in the 1 3/8-mile Kent July 8 at Delaware Park.
“I think because he broke his maiden on dirt we just sort of went on to see if he wanted to do that. He travels fine on dirt and won the first time on dirt so we thought we could give him a try going forward knowing that he was pretty much going to be a turf horse,” Meyers said. “When it works on dirt you kind of just keep trying.
“Switching him back to turf on Preakness day, it was a pretty tough field on a big day and obviously they had gotten a lot of rain so we weren’t sure about the ground and everything like that,” she added. “But [jockey] Yomar [Ortiz] had him well settled out back and he came with a big run and it was a really nice win. He ran a decent figure and we were just delighted with him to show up like that on a big day. Everybody here was really proud of him.”
Ben Curtis, who replaced an injured Ortiz for the Kent, gets the return call on Desvio from Post 5 of seven in the Bald Eagle Derby, sharing topweight of 124 pounds with fellow stakes winner Trevesso.
“He ran sort of a weird race on the dirt [April 19 at Laurel] where I don’t know if he got a little claustrophobic down on the rail or what. You come out of a race like that and I couldn’t find anything to really change up with him,” Meyers said. “It was like let’s just put a line through it and you don’t know until race day if that’s the right decision or not. But it turned out that just moving past it was the way to go and put him back on grass.”
Post Time Facing Biggest Test Yet in Saturday’s G1 Whitney
Back at Saratoga for the biggest race of his life in Saturday’s $1 million Whitney (G1), it didn’t take long for Hillwood Stable’s multiple graded-stakes winner Post Time to feel right at home.
The 4-year-old Post Time arrived from Maryland on Tuesday and went to the track for the first time Wednesday morning with his usual enthusiasm, which has continued throughout the week.
“He was clapping his hands and letting everyone know he was there, so that’s good to see,” Laurel Park-based trainer Brittany Russell said. “He’s acting like himself.”
Post Time has continued to thrive in his time up north, joined early Thursday evening by Russell, her husband and champion jockey Sheldon Russell, and owner Ellen Charles. Assistant trainer and exercise rider Emma Wolfe, who runs Russell’s string at the Fair Hill Training Center in Elkton, Md. where Post Time resides, traveled with the stable star who settled in the barn of family friend and fellow trainer Keri Brion.
In the leadup to the June 8 Met Mile (G1), a race where he won a photo for second behind National Treasure on the undercard of the first Belmont Stakes (G1) ever run at Saratoga, Post Time resided in a barn adjacent to that of trainer Barclay Tagg on the main track backstretch.
“I thought it might be a little quieter over there,” Brittany Russell said of Brion’s location in the Oklahoma training track annex. “He handled it well last time and he enjoyed himself. For us, too, I think it was good and we learned a lot. We went up and he settled in well. We learned a lot about him, the lay of the land on a day like that, that kind of stuff.”
Following the Met Mile, Post Time’s second straight race at the distance and first foray into Grade 1 company, the connections had the 1 1/8-mile Whitney in their sights. It will be the first time around two turns for the son of Frosted, who himself followed a record-setting Met Mile victory with a two-length triumph in the Whitney in 2016.
“It’s quite a two-turn test, but I said to somebody the other day, yeah, he’s running in a Grade 1 against National Treasure and others, but he’s the kind of horse that I feel like we always have confidence in walking over. You know he’s going to run. It’s a matter of if he can handle the mile and an eighth against these kind,” Russell said. “Somebody can have a bad day, we can have a good day, and vice versa. You don’t know what’s going to happen, so you have to show up and try.”
Post Time has never been worse than third in 11 starts, eight of them wins, tied with multi-millionaire Skippylongstocking for most in the field of 12. Maryland’s champion juvenile of 2022, he earned graded credentials in the Feb. 17 General George (G3) at Laurel and followed up by taking the April 6 Carter (G2) at Aqueduct, both sprinting seven furlongs.
Sheldon Russell will be aboard the typically late-running Post Time for the ninth straight race, this time from Post 1. They are rated at 20-1 on the morning line in the Whitney, carded as Race 11 (5:42 p.m.).
“He drew the rail. There’s speed in there, and at least we know he’s going to run his race. If it’s good enough we’ll find out,” Brittany Russell said. “Honestly, I didn’t expect to see 12. You don’t know, come race day maybe a couple of them decide not to go. Who knows. We’ve had it on our radar since he ran second in the Met. He’s been awesome. He hasn’t missed a beat. He’s up there and he’s loving life. We’re going to take a swing.”
Russell won twice on Laurel’s Friday program, taking the opener, a maiden special weight for 2-year-old fillies sprinting 5 ½ furlongs on the Kelso turf course, with Nice Guys Stables’ second-time starter Gata Brazil ($5.80). The $575,000 daughter of Into Mischief drew off by 5 ½ lengths in 1:02.90.
In Race 4, a six-furlong claiming event for maiden fillies and mares ages 3, 4 and 5, Russell and jockey Jevian Toledo teamed up again with StarLadies Racing’s Lottie Deno ($2.40). A $200,000 yearling making her fifth start, all this year, the 3-year-old Munnings filly covered the distance in 1:11.78 and was claimed for $20,000 by trainer Kieron Magee.
Notes: Jockey J.G. Torrealba notched back-to-back wins Friday aboard Stop the Cap ($7) in Race 6 and Wonder Girl ($9.80) in Race 7 … Jockey Jeiron Barbosa also doubled with Crisper ($6) in Race 3 and Fivecommatwo ($9.40) in Race 5 … Ronald Cuneo’s multiple stakes winner Armando R ($6.60) made a dramatic last-to-first move on the far outside to capture featured Race 8, a second-level optional claiming allowance for 3-year-olds and up, in 1:44.81 for 1 1/16 miles on a fast main track. The 8-year-old gelding was not taken for the $40,000 tag … There will be carryovers of $7,523.84 in the 20-cent Rainbow 6 (Races 4-9) and $6,906.34 in the $1 Jackpot Super High Five (Race 6) Saturday. First race post time is 12:25 p.m.