After Count Fleet defeat, Whitmore to stay the course

Whitmore will follow the “same route” he did last year after leaving Oaklawn Park, targeting the Churchill Downs Stakes (G1) on May 4 at Churchill Downs for his next start, co-owner/trainer Ron Moquett of Hot Springs said Friday morning.

Whitmore was beaten for the first time in eight career sprint starts at Oaklawn in last Saturday’s Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3), finishing 2 ¾ lengths behind Mitole in the 6-furlong race for older horses.

“Happy,” Moquett said, when asked how Whitmore emerged physically from the Count Fleet.

Whitmore had won the Count Fleet the previous two years, but last Saturday’s race didn't set up ideally with the freakishly fast Mitole the controlling speed in the five-horse field. Whitmore shadowed Mitole from the start on the outside and challenged the favorite turning for home, but Mitole pulled away in the final furlong to post his fifth consecutive victory.

“We’ve been beaten by some good horses that were allowed to go unattended, slow fractions, and we’ve beaten good horses that were made to go fast – fast horses, attended fractions,” Moquett said. “It was just one of those deals.”

After winning last year’s Count Fleet, Whitmore finished a troubled fourth in the seven-furlong Churchill Downs Stakes. Whitmore recorded his first Grade 1 victory in the Forego Stakes on Aug. 25 at Saratoga and finished second in the Breeders’ Cup Sprint on Nov. 3 at Churchill Downs.

Whitmore won the Hot Springs Stakes March 9 in his 2019 debut. The gelding has won the Hot Springs, the final major local prep for the Count Fleet, three consecutive years.

Moquett said Whitmore’s major year-end objective is another try at the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, this time on Nov. 2 at Santa Anita. Whitmore sports a 12-8-2 record from 26 lifetime starts and earnings of $2,571,000.