The Week In Review, By Bill Finley
When Eric Camacho retired from riding in 2016, he thought he knew what his future would be. He'd work as an exercise rider in the mornings and step aside in the afternoons and let someone else get all the glory and the big paychecks. Never did he imagine he'd win another race, let alone get the mount on an undefeated 2-year-old who might just be good enough to be pointed toward the GI Kentucky Derby. But after Post Time (Frosted) won Saturday's Maryland Juvenile at Laurel with Camacho aboard, it's beginning to look like anything is possible.
“It's been amazing,” Camacho, 39, said. “Words can't express it.”
Camacho rode regularly from 2004 through 2016 and won 787 races and captured Laurel Park's 2005 winter meet riding title. But he won just 16 races in 2016 and was having a hard time lining up decent mounts.
“I needed to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life,” he said.
So he quit riding and took a job galloping horses for trainer Keith Nations. It was his first stop of many before he signed on to work for trainer Brittany Russell in May. That was just about the time that Russell was starting to prepare Post Time for the races. In the son of Frosted, she knew she had a talented prospect but one who was a handful and was immature and quirky. Someone needed to teach him the right way to go about things and she assigned the job to Camacho. The two hit it off.
“He liked to rear up, he liked to play around,” Camacho said. “This horse liked to do things way he liked to do things. I have a lot of experience with younger horses trying to get along with them. We had a bond. Don't get me wrong, we had our bouts. But he came to respect me. He's a very smart horse.”
Post Time's debut was delayed due to a quarter crack, but Russell, whose husband, Sheldon, is a jockey, had him ready to go by early fall. It was around then that Camacho came to her and said whoever would be riding Post Time in the afternoon needed to get on him in the mornings beforehand.
“I told her that if she put somebody on this horse they first need to come by and get on him in the morning,” Camacho said. “I don't want them to afraid of him in the afternoon.”
Russell considered his advice and started to think that maybe the best option was to let Camacho ride Post Time.
“I asked him if maybe he should ride the horse,” she said. “At first, I was kind of just joking around. But then I thought, you know what, he has a good relationship with the horse's owner, Ellen Charles, and I know he'll get this horse to the starting gate. Whatever tricks this horse might have up his sleeve on race day I know Eric will remain confident in him and will let him run anyway.”
The Maryland-bred debuted Oct. 7, facing off against open company in a 5 1/2-furlong maiden race at Laurel. Camacho, who had one mount in 2017 and another in 2021, had not won a race for nearly six years, since Oct. 20, 2016. Post Time won by two lengths, but it was far from smooth sailing. After making a sweeping move on the turn and gaining the lead in upper stretch, he swerved in and out down the lane.
He returned for an allowance race on Oct. 27 and it was a case of more of the same, a bold move on the turn followed by his ducking in and out down the stretch. He won by 6 3/4 lengths.
The Maryland Juvenile was next. Facing fellow Maryland-breds, this time Post Time closed from last, made an eye-catching move on the turn and drew off to win by 3 3/4 lengths. Though the competition may not have been that strong, it was a very impressive effort. And it was delivered without any antics in the stretch, giving Camacho his third win on the year from just three mounts. He has not ridden anybody else this year.
“This horse really turned a comer in the last two weeks or so,” Camacho said.
With the worst behavior perhaps a thing of the past, maybe now is the time for Russell to go to a different jockey, maybe even her husband, who is one of the top riders on the Maryland circuit. Russell said she has no plans to do so.
“I don't know where we'll go with him next, but it's kind of hard to pull somebody off a horse that knows him so well and has done nothing wrong on him,” Russell said. “I think this has meant a lot to Eric. And it should. He's done a lot of work with this horse, who has had his good days and his bad days. Yes, he has a lot of talent, but I'm sure there are a lot of days when Eric wakes up and thinks, 'Oh, gosh, I've got to get this sucker to the racetrack this morning.' We gave Eric an opportunity, but he has done a great job.”
It's clear that Post Time is ready for a tougher assignment, but it's hard to tell how good he is. He has been winning easily, but that doesn't mean that he can step up from Maryland-bred competition and be competitive in a prep for the Derby. Then again, Russell isn't ruling it out.
“That's why you're in this business,” she said. “Everybody wants a horse like this in the barn and everybody wants to dream. The Derby or Derby preps? I can't say no, but he has a lot to prove before you can start talking about something like that. He won the Maryland Juvenile against a horse that had just won a restricted race. He's going to have to step up. Ellen is Maryland through and through, so she might like to see him run through the series here in races like the Tesio. But it's not a far ship to New York, so something there might be in the cards.”
Wherever Post Time goes next, it will be with Camacho, his exercise rider aboard.
“People say this horse has so much ability, why do you let the exercise rider ride him in the afternoon?” Russell said. “You have to realize that Eric had to work really hard with the horse to get him to show his talent in the afternoon. I don't know where we'd be without him.”
In Appreciation of Mind Control
There have been better horses to run over the last few years than Mind Control (Stay Thirsty), the winner of Saturday's GI Cigar Mile H., but perhaps none tougher or more game. You don't want to get into a dogfight in the stretch with this horse because you will lose. That was the case Saturday when he was passed in the stretch by Get Her Number (Dialed In) only to fight back and win by a head. It was his 11th career stakes win and his third victory in a Grade I event.
In the last four races in which he has crossed the wire first, he has won by a head every time. The chart comments have included the following: “battled back gamely,” “bid stretch, came again,” and “dueled.” Outside of his maiden win, which he won by three lengths, he has never won by more than 1 1/2 lengths and he won both the GI H. Allen Jerkens S. and the GIII Toboggan S. by a nose.
He's also been remarkably durable, winning the GI Hopeful S. as a 2-year-old and the Cigar as a 6-year-old in his last career start.
“If you like horse racing, you've got to love this horse,” said winning trainer Todd Pletcher after the Cigar.
Well said.
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