Whitmore Half Brother Arrogates Spirit Eyes 2022 Debut

Oaklawn Park is home to more than 1,300 Thoroughbreds this winter. Perhaps none is more appropriately named, or housed, than a 2-year-old preparing for his career debut in 2022 for trainer Ron Moquett.

The colt is by the late Eclipse Award winner Arrogate . The dam is Melody's Spirit. The expectations—at least on paper—are naturally high. The horse, Arrogates Spirit, is a half brother to the fiery Whitmore , Moquett's now-retired Eclipse Award winner. 

"He's got the same body, but gray," Moquett said. "But opposite in disposition. He's easygoing. Lets you rub his ears. Likes to be nuzzled, all that stuff. But he's a lot friendlier. If you did that with Whitmore, he'd kill you."

Nobody knows Whitmore's idiosyncrasies like Moquett and his wife/assistant Laura, who was the chestnut gelding's regular exercise rider. They guided Whitmore through a 43-race campaign that yielded 15 victories, including the $1.8 million Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1) in 2020 at Keeneland to secure an Eclipse Award as the country's champion male sprinter.

Whitmore emerged from the $600,000 Forego Stakes (G1) Aug. 28 at Saratoga Race Course with a career-ending leg injury and the hope is the 8-year-old gelding can transition to a stable pony. Enter Arrogates Spirit, who is the third horse Ron Moquett has trained out of Melody's Spirit and the first he's tutoring for Southern California-based Slam Dunk Racing.

"I think he's a good-sized colt and that ownership group is very well-known for doing what's good for the horse," Moquett said. "I think they just let him develop."

Arrogates Spirit is from the first crop by Arrogate, who stormed to champion 3-year-old male honors in 2016 following a record-setting 13 1/2-length victory in the $1.25 million Travers Stakes (G1) at Saratoga and beating older horses, notably California Chrome , in the $5.5 million Breeders' Cup Classic (G1) at Santa Anita Park. 

Arrogate, a gray son of Unbridled's Song, didn't debut until April of his 3-year-old season. Moquett said in a perfect world Arrogates Spirit would make his career debut March 19, when Oaklawn runs the inaugural $200,000 Whitmore Stakes for older sprinters. 

Following the gelding's retirement, Oaklawn renamed the Hot Springs Stakes after the seven-time local stakes winner and proclaimed March 19 "Whitmore Day." Whitmore won the Hot Springs a record four consecutive years (2017-20).

"That's his brother's big day," Moquett said. "He's going to write the book, but we're going to point there. If he drags us there earlier, then we'll go there."

It was Nick Cosato, Slam Dunk's founder, who steered his homebred to Moquett after initially crossing paths with the trainer following Whitmore's dazzling 7 1/4-length debut victory in a maiden special weight sprint for 2-year-olds in November 2015 at Churchill Downs. 

"He was one of the first people that called, trying to buy Whitmore," Moquett said. "Then, him being smart, before Whitmore made his second start, he went and bought Whitmore's mother."

Moquett was Whitmore's sole owner when he debuted (the trainer runs under the Southern Springs Stables banner), but he passed on Cosato's offer and instead brought in Robert LaPenta and Arkansan Harry Rosenblum as partners before the gelding made his second career start in the $1 million Delta Jackpot Stakes (G3) 15 days later at Delta Downs. 

Moquett already had an accomplished horse for LaPenta and Rosenblum in multiple Oaklawn stakes winner Far Right , a Notional  ridgling who finished a distant second to American Pharoah   in its $1 million Arkansas Derby (G1) in 2015 before becoming the trainer's first Kentucky Derby Presented by Yum! Brands (G1) starter three weeks later at Churchill Downs, where he finished 15th. Whitmore ran 19th in the 2016 Kentucky Derby (Arrogate was still a maiden), then began his long climb to the top of the country's sprint ranks later that year. 

"He tried to buy the whole thing," Moquett said, referring to Cosato. "He tried to buy whatever he could buy. He wanted him bad. He offered good money. But I had a relationship at the time with Bob LaPenta and Harry."

Rosenblum sold his interest in Whitmore to Sol Kumin (Head of Plains Partners) in the spring of 2017, shortly before the gelding's first of a record three victories in Oaklawn's Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3). 

Whitmore is the first foal out of Melody's Spirit, an unraced daughter of Scat Daddy . Her second foal to reach the races, Kid Sis, was winless in two career starts for Moquett, who co-owned the Atreides   filly with longtime clients William S. Sparks and Eric Johnson (Harlow Stables). She succumbed to colic, Moquett said, after finishing 10th in her 3-year-old debut in February 2019 at Oaklawn.

Skip Intro, the third foal out of Melody's Spirit to reach the races, is winless in three career starts for Moquett and prominent Arkansas owners Alex and JoAnn Lieblong. Skip Intro, a 3-year-old son of Liam's Map  , has been training this winter at Oaklawn. 

Cosato also bred Kid Sis and Skip Intro, a $190,000 Keeneland September Yearling Sale graduate in 2019. Arrogates Spirit was entered in the 2020 Keeneland September Yearling Sale, but Cosato bought the colt back (at $170,000) after he failed to meet his reserve.

Arrogates Spirit has been with Moquett for approximately 6 1/2 weeks, logging two half-mile works in December at Oaklawn in advance of his career debut.

"I've only been on him a couple of times," Laura Moquett said. "He seems way nicer than Whitmore. He seems like a big, cool athletic guy."

Arrogate started his stud career at Juddmonte Farms and was euthanized in June 2020 because of a neurological disorder. He retired with $17,422,600 in career earnings, an all-time North American record (at least one start in the United States or Canada), according to Equibase, racing's official data gathering organization.

Whitmore earned $4,502,350 in his career, including a record $4,098,600 for North American-based sprinters (races up to a mile) in 37 starts. He performed well in Road to the Kentucky Derby preps in 2016 at Oaklawn, finishing second in the $500,000 Southwest Stakes (G3) and $900,000 Rebel Stakes (G2) at 1 1/16 miles and third in the Arkansas Derby at 1 1/8 miles before making his emphatic mark sprinting. Whitmore is also by a Breeders' Cup Classic winner, 2003 champion Pleasantly Perfect. Ron Moquett said Arrogates Spirit is "longer" than Whitmore, indicating that he might be more effective around two turns this his famous half sibling.

"We're getting to know him more and more," Moquett said. "He's very smart and covers a lot of ground whenever he's moving. He's learning. I'll say this: he's very willing."