Limousine Liberal, Whitmore Meet in Belmont Sprint

After each delivered solid efforts in different graded stakes on the June 9 Belmont Stakes Day card, Limousine Liberal and Whitmore will return to Belmont Park July 7 to try the $350,000 Belmont Sprint Championship Stakes (G2).

Two starts back, Katherine Ball homebred Limousine Liberal posted a narrow victory in the Churchill Downs Stakes presented by Twinspires.com (G2), the second straight year the gelded son of Successful Appeal  won that seven-furlong test in Louisville. Whitmore also contested this year's Churchill Downs, finishing fourth.

Off those efforts, both horses were shipped to Belmont Park, where Limousine Liberal finished third in the Runhappy Metropolitan Handicap (G1) and Whitmore was a close second in the True North Stakes (G2). For Saturday's seven-furlong race at Belmont—a Breeders' Cup Challenge "Win & You're In" event to the TwinSpires Breeders' Cup Sprint (G1)—Limousine Liberal drew the rail, and Whitmore is beside him in the expected field of six.

Trained by Ben Colebrook, Limousine Liberal looks to secure his fourth graded stakes win and sixth stakes win overall, but it would be his first away from Churchill Downs. Jose Ortiz, who was aboard in both Churchill Downs Stakes scores, has the mount.

Before his two most recent efforts, Whitmore had made 10 starts at six furlongs in 2017 and 2018, but trainer Ron Moquett said the son of Pleasantly Perfect can handle a longer distance and noted he has progressed since finishing a neck behind Imperial Hint in the True North at 6 1/2 furlongs. Whitmore has registered a pair of half-mile works at Churchill since that effort, including a July 1 breeze in :48.

"He came back very happy out of the True North and has been working well here at Churchill," Moquett said. "He shipped into Belmont last night, and I like him at seven-eighths. He's finished second going a mile and sixteenth in the Rebel (Stakes, G2) and third at a mile and an eighth in the Arkansas Derby (G1), so his distance is whatever the pace will allow us to run. We're taking things race by race starting Saturday, but we're looking forward to it."

While Whitmore stretches out, grade 1-placed Favorable Outcome returns to the seven-furlong distance where he won last year's Swale Stakes (G2) at Gulfstream Park. The son of Flatter  enters off a runner-up finish for trainer Chad Brown in an optional-claiming allowance race May 17 on a sloppy Belmont track.

The field also includes Shaft of Light, who enters off a runner-up finish in the May 26 Salvator Mile Stakes (G3) May 26 at Monmouth Park, and Lewisfield, who has won or placed in three straight stakes, including a third-place finish in the Maryland Sprint Stakes (G3). 

Eye Luv Lulu is the lone horse entered off a win, having defeated other New York-breds in the Affirmed Success Stakes.