CT: Murdock sees similar path for Teachintherelease
Was 2025 WV-bred horse of the year
Ted Black
August 4, 2026
Following a 2025 campaign that went according to plan and then beyond en route to recording three stakes victories and being named West Virginia-bred horse of the year, Teachintherelease made his belated 2026 debut Aug. 1 by capturing a two-turn allowance event. His connections hope that will be a springboard to similar success this summer and fall.
Now a six-year-old Windsor Castle gelding trained by Stephen Murdock for owner Robert Cole, Jr., Teachintherelease returned from a lengthy layoff to capture a salty, two-turn open allowance for state-bred older males last Saturday night at Charles Town by 4 ½ lengths in 1:24.86 for seven furlongs.
Despite his dominance against state-bred runners last year, Teachintherelease was actually sent postward as the 8-5 second choice in that group with odds-on Jubawithatwist rallying late to finish second.
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“I was very happy with the way he ran the other night,” Murdock said. “He was training well coming into the race and I thought he would run well. But he ran even better than I expected he would.”
Teachintherelease recorded his first win of 2025 exactly one year earlier in a similar event. That tally propelled him to victories in the $75,000 Frank Gall Memorial, the $300,000 Sam Huff West Virginia Classic and then the $75,000 Randy Funkhouser Memorial, all by comfortable margins.
Murdock sees a similar sequence for his star this year.
“He had a couple of races underneath of him before he tried the stakes last year,” Murdock said. “But he’s basically going to point for the same races again this year. His next race is definitely going to be the Frank Gall [on August 28]. He’s won it the last two years. I think that $1 million [Grade II, Charles Town Classic on the same day] race is going to be too tough.”
After beating up on state-bred rivals last season, Teachintherelease would then run fourth against open company in the $100,000 Robert Manfuso Memorial at Laurel Park, concluding his campaign with five wins and over $280,000 banked from seven outings.
Teachintherelease won the 2024 edition of the Frank Gall for his first stakes win before finishing second in the West Virginia Onion Juice Breeders’ Classic. Last year, though, the Gall put him on a different trajectory.
After that win he came right back to win the Sam Huff Classic by 14 ¼ lengths before capturing the Randy Funkhouser Memorial by over five.
His win Saturday means that, if all goes to plan, Teachintherelease will make his third or fourth start of the cycle on Breeders’ Classics night.
“I think that race the other night really set him up for the rest of the year,” Murdock said of Teachintherelease, who now boasts 16 wins and over $600,000 banked from 35 career tries. “We’re going to the Gall and hope he can win that a third straight year. Then we’ll aim for the Classic and maybe find a prep race for him in between going long. Then he’ll have the Funkhouser.”
There’s one other bit of unfinished business, Murdock says. Last year’s visit to Laurel didn’t go particularly well, as he caught a rough group including multiple graded winner Post Time, near-millionaire Barbadian Runner, and Preakness entrant Pay Billy. Teachintherelease led for more than six furlongs before fading to be a well-beaten fourth in a five-horse field.
But Murdock is undaunted, perhaps with good reason.
“I would like to try him again at Laurel,” the trainer said. “Last year we shipped him the day of the race and he didn’t like the ride over. This time around I’ll ship a week before the race and let him get acclimated. I think he’ll run a much better race there next time if we get there a week early.”
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