“I never really get choked up. But then again, I’ve never rode a horse like him,” jockey Sheldon Russell said Saturday afternoon at Laurel Park.

Moments earlier, Russell had grappled with the emotions after piloting Post Time, his horse of a lifetime, to the 13^th and final victory of the five-year-old’s glittering career.

Now for Post Time, an intact son of Frosted, it’s off to Northview Stallion Station and his new job as a stud.

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Russell wasn’t the only one to wrestle with the emotions of the moment. His wife Brittany, Post Time’s trainer, wiped away tears after sharing a big hug with owner Ellen Charles, who races as Hillwood Stable. Charles said that for her part, she was out of tears on a journey that seems almost preordained.

Charles’s grandmother was Marjorie Meriweather Post, the famed businesswoman and philanthropist. Post Time’s maternal granddam was the Opening Verse mare Merriweather.

“Originally, I was thinking of pinhooking him with Cary Frommer,” said Charles, who purchased Post Time for $85,000 from the Fasig-Tipton Midlantic fall yearling sale in 2021. “But then when I saw who his grandmother was, I said, ‘A Merriweather has to come home with me.’ So it’s been the most amazing journey.”

It’s a journey that’s included two graded stakes wins, a runner-up finish in last year’s Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile, and a bankroll of nearly $1.6 million.

All the racing leg of the journey needed was a proper finish, but in October’s Maryland Million Classic, the Henry Walters-trained Barbadian Runner shrugged off Post Time’s mid-stretch bid to score the upset and delay the retirement celebrations.

Today the same duo reconvened, but Post Time turned the tables.

“We knew that he still had another run in him,” Brittany Russell said after this afternoon’s contest. “And I think he was happy to walk over here today and do that, and it was fun for everyone to watch him go out on top.”

It wasn’t easy, though.

Post Time dawdled well off the early pace. Teachintherelease, dominant winner of October’s Sam Huff West Virginia Breeders’ Classic, carved the early fractions while fending off longshot Hittheroadjak, getting the half-mile in 48.14 seconds and three quarters in 1:13.49.

Rounding the far turn, jockey Forest Boyce had Barbadian Runner along the rail and off a speed trio, while Russell and Post Time crept closer to the action.

As the field straightened away for home, Barbadian Runner slipped through along the rail to make the front, and Post Time found a seam between horses to loom the only threat. Post Time quickened willingly and pulled away to win by 1 ¼ lengths in 1:44.54 for 1 1/16 miles on a fast main track.

“I felt like I was traveling the best, and it was whether I just made the right move,” Sheldon Russell said. “Forest was forced to go inside, which helped me, because if she doesn’t go inside, I’d probably have to take that route.”

Barbadian Runner was more than 15 lengths ahead of show horse Pay Billy, while Teachintherelease faded to fourth. Post Time returned $3.00 as the 1-2 favorite, and the exacta paid $2.30 for a buck.

“We ran in multiple Grade Ones. He showed up every time,” Brittany Russell recalled. “You know, these horses are hard to find, and it’s hard to put it all into words, to be honest.”

Even with all the big races Post Time ran, though, Charles remembered a different moment.

“It was when he ran here in the summer, and after he won, everybody was clapping for him and thanking me for racing him,” Charles said. “I just never expected that.”

NOTES Post Time’s win was trainer Brittany Russell’s second stakes win of the day. She and Sheldon Russell also teamed up to win the Carousel with Golden Lion Racing’s Complexity Jane, who earned her second consecutive stakes win… Kasey K Racing Stable, Michael Day, and Final Turn Racing Stable’s Takethemoneyhone burst clear to earn her second stakes win in the Politely for Maryland- and Virginia-restricted fillies and mares. Eliseo Ruiz was in the irons…