Whitmore wins the Grade 3 Count Fleet Sprint Handicap for the third time in four years.
Trainer Ron Moquett said he is considering targeting the Grade 1 Forego with 2020 Champion Sprinter Whitmore, following his third-place finish in Saturday’s Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt at Saratoga Race Course in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.
Owned by Moquett in partnership with Robert V. LaPenta and Head of Plains Partners, the seven-time graded stakes winner rated in between horses down the backstretch while taking some kickback. Whitmore made a menacing move in the upper stretch when switching to the outside and gained on frontrunners Lexitonian and Special Reserve, but came up 1 ¾ lengths shy of victory.
The 8-year-old veteran captured the 2018 running of the seven-furlong G1 Forego over eventual Grade 1 Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile winner City of Light.
“We’re looking at the Forego,” Moquett said. “I was very proud of how he came back out of the race. Obviously, we’ll pay attention to him the next week or so and see if he’s up for it, but that’s what we’re hoping for.”
Still in search of his first victory this year, Whitmore has finished in the money in all four starts, which consists of runner-up efforts at Oaklawn Park in the Hot Springs on March 13, which he won from 2017-21, and Grade 3 Count Fleet on April 10, a race he won in 2017-18 and 2020. He arrived at the Vanderbilt off a third-place finish in the Grade 1 Churchill Downs.
Moquett said taking dirt down the backstretch didn’t do Whitmore any favors.
“I’m sure it didn’t help. He’s sensitive about his eyes so that may have been why he decided to run outside instead of through the rail, but it looked like a lot of horses were taking kickback,” Moquett said.
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