Photo:

Dan Heary / Eclipse Sportswire

Hillwood Stable’s multiple graded-stakes winning millionaire Post Time, most recently second in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 2, will race again as a 5-year-old in 2025 with the $3 million Pegasus World Cup (G1) on Jan. 25 at Gulfstream Park as a potential season opener.

Owned and bred by Hillwood Stables and trained by Brittany Russell, Post Time is entered in Saturday’s Cigar Mile (G2) at Aqueduct, where the 4-year-old Frosted colt drew outermost Post 11 in a field that includes Grade 1 winners Señor Buscador, Book’em Danno, Locked and Mullikin.

“He’ll run next year. I’m going to try to figure out what it’s going to look like,” Russell said. “It’s probably a little early to be like, ‘We’re going back to the Breeders’ Cup,’ but looking at the year I’ll probably pause on him somehow at the beginning of the year, back off of him a little bit and then we’ll gear him up for the second part of the year.”

The 1 1/8-mile Pegasus for 4-year-olds and up headlines a World Cup day program of eight stakes, seven graded, and two overnight handicaps, including the Pegasus World Cup Turf (G1) and Pegasus World Cup Filly & Mare Turf (G2).

“It’s on our radar. We’ll see how he runs this weekend. If he runs really big, I wouldn’t want to stop on him just yet,” Russell said. “We’re definitely going to entertain the idea. I just want to get through this weekend. It would make sense if we do the Pegasus in January, then we’d have February and March (for a break). I think Saturday will tell us what we need to know.”

Post Time has never been worse than third in 14 career starts with nine wins and $1,167,910 in purse earnings. Winner of Aqueduct’s Carter (G2) and Laurel Park’s General George (G3) over the winter, he has placed in three Grade 1 stakes, including a second in the Metropolitan Handicap on June 8 and a third in the 1 1/8-mile Whitney, his two-turn debut, Aug. 3, both at Saratoga.

Post Time trailed the 13-horse field through four furlongs of the Dirt Mile before making his familiar late run, weaving through traffic under regular rider and Russell’s husband, Sheldon Russell, to come within 1 1/2 lengths of winner Full Serrano as the sixth betting choice at odds of nearly 8-1. It marked the Breeders’ Cup debut for the Russells as well as Hillwood’s Ellen Charles, the granddaughter of famed businesswoman and philanthropist Marjorie Merriweather Post.

“It was so much fun and we were so proud of him and so excited. I don’t know what would have happened if he won. I think we might have lost it,” Russell said. “I’d love to see him get a Grade 1. He so deserves it.”