Ageless Whitmore Makes Rare Saratoga Appearance

In terms of productivity, few sprinters can hold the proverbial candle to Whitmore.

Seemingly as good as ever at the age of 7, the chestnut gelding enters the July 25 Alfred G. Vanderbilt Handicap (G1) at Saratoga Race Course with 34 starts. Fourteen of them have been victories, including two in his most recent starts at Oaklawn Park. He has also racked up 10 seconds and three thirds. He's won 10 stakes, six of them graded, to give him career earnings of $3,146,350, the most by an offspring of the recently deceased stallion Pleasantly Perfect.

That's an abridged version of the life and times of the hard-knocking gelding. Whitmore can also be described as a legend at Oaklawn Park, where earlier this year he won the Hot Springs Stakes for the fourth straight year and captured the Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) for the third time since 2017. He's even raced in the Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) on three occasions and hit the board in the past two editions.

"He likes his job. I'd like to take credit for him, but it's all him," trainer and part owner Ron Moquett said. "Everywhere we go, we're carried by a horse, and he has taken us to parts of the world we would have never seen without him. We're so thankful for him."

Yet for all of that success across the nation, Whitmore is virtually a stranger at the Spa, which is indeed odd since two-thirds of his ownership group (Robert LaPenta and Sol Kumin of Head of Plains Partners) are prominent New York horsemen.

In his 34 starts, he's broken from the starting gate at Saratoga just once, and on that afternoon of Aug. 25, 2018, he won the Forego Stakes (G1), which has proven to be his lone grade 1 triumph. 

One Saratoga start and one grade 1 win for a $3 million earner whose past 25 starts have come in stakes?

Those numbers may seem skewed, but owner/trainer Moquett can explain half of it. The other half utterly frustrates him.

For the most part, Whitmore has been a winter-spring-fall runner. Given how vigorously he has raced at Oaklawn—with 14 starts and nine wins—Moquett has been known to give him an early summer freshening to prepare him for the fall and the Breeders' Cup, which explains the paucity of Saratoga starts.

In 2018, the Forego fit in nicely during a campaign that culminated in a runner-up finish in the Sprint at Moquett's summer/fall base of Churchill Downs. As it has turned out, the Forego was Whitmore's last win at a track other than Oaklawn Park.

Last year, Whitmore was off from early June to early October.

At 4 in 2017, Whitmore was flown to New York for the Vanderbilt, but there was a lengthy delay in unloading him from the plane and he lashed out at his stall with his hoof, tearing off his shoe. The injury prevented Moquett from entering him in the grade 1 stakes.

Even this year, Moquett originally planned to run Whitmore in a July 12 allowance optional claiming race at Keeneland as a prep for the Churchill Downs Stakes Presented by TwinSpires.com (G1), which he expected to be contested during Kentucky Derby Week in early September. But when the seven-furlong stakes was not included in Churchill's five-day meet, Moquett scratched Whitmore from the Keeneland race and pointed his winner of two of three 2020 starts toward the Vanderbilt.

"I entered him at Keeneland before the stakes book at Churchill Downs was announced. We entered there thinking the Churchill Downs Stakes would be here in Kentucky and we could stay home for both races," Moquett said.

Down the road, Moquett is looking forward to training and racing in Kentucky to prepare for the $2 million Breeders' Cup Sprint, which will be contested Nov. 7 at Keeneland, the Lexington track where Whitmore is a grade 2 winner.

"It's always nice to have a home game in the Breeders' Cup instead of a road game," the trainer said. "Everyone would love to walk out of their barn and run, and Keeneland is a track we run on and it's in our region."

Should all go well this week, aside from getting another chance to run at the Spa, Whitmore will take an all-too-rare swing at another grade 1 win.

In Moquett's eyes, Whitmore's last start and victory should have earned him grade 1 laurels. Considering how often his multiple graded stakes-winning horse has competed in the Count Fleet, and that 2019 Eclipse Award-winning sprinter Mitole  captured last year's race, he believes the Oaklawn race—and sprint stakes in general—fail to get the proper respect from the American Graded Stakes Committee.

"Even though sprinters make up a majority of the sport, there are not many grade 1 opportunities for Whitmore and other top sprinters. We were proud to win the Forego with its great history, but they need to look at the Count Fleet," said Moquett, who has 825 wins and $28.8 million in earnings through July 23. "How can that be a grade 3 with Mitole in it and all of the other great horses who ran in it? The Vanderbilt is a good race, but you had an Eclipse champion in the Count Fleet and it's a grade 3. If it was in New York, it would probably be a grade 1."

Regardless of whether Whitmore adds another grade 1 win to his résumé, for Moquett the experience of caring for the gelding since 2015 has been a thrill like no other for him. A trainer since 1997, Moquett has nine graded stakes wins, and Whitmore has been responsible for six of them.

"We're blessed to have him," Moquett said. "When you wake up every day in this game, you dream of a horse like this that you can count on and who is talented and honest. We are so grateful."

Moquett bought Whitmore, the first foal out of the Scat Daddy mare Melody's Spirit, privately from breeder John Liviakis for $37,000. Moquett gelded him before his Nov. 6, 2015, debut at Churchill, which was a 7 1/4-length win at 15-1 odds. Moquett then sold shares of the gelding to LaPenta and Harry Rosenblum, and they tried him on the Triple Crown trail. He enjoyed some success around two turns at 3, finishing second in the Rebel Stakes (G2) and Southwest Stakes (G3) and third in the Arkansas Derby (G1), but in the 2016 Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) he faded to 19th.

After that, Whitmore returned to sprinting, with Kumin buying Rosenblum's share in April 2017, prior to Whitmore's first win in the Count Fleet.

"Whitmore has been one of the most fun horses we have ever owned," said Kumin, who has owned a share of Triple Crown winner Justify  and five other champions and is also part owner of Vanderbilt starter Mind Magic. "He always shows up and tries. Ron has done an incredible job with him."

Working in unison has allowed the reconfigured ownership group to smoothly map out plans for their gelding.

"They couldn't be better partners," Moquett said. "Bob is as classy as they get, and he and Sol, they want to do what's best for the horse 100% of the time. They never asked me to do anything that I didn't like. They told me to do what I feel is right. They let me be told by the horse what we should do. I got in this sport for the love and respect of the horse, and that's what keeps me in it. It's not a life-changing, money-making deal. That's why I have a small stable. You put in a lot of hard work and you want to be around people who think like you. I don't know what else I would have done in life. Maybe I would have drove a truck. But I wouldn't do this job unless I have people with me who care about the horses as much as I do."

Judging by what Moquett has accomplished with Whitmore and so many other horses over the course of more than two decades, the trucking industry's loss has surely been Thoroughbred racing's gain.