Champion sprinter Whitmore retired after Forego injury

A champion sprinter has finished his final race.

Whitmore will be retired, owner-trainer Ron Moquett announced on Twitter on Saturday afternoon. His tweet came just after the 2020 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner and Eclipse Award champ ran fifth at Saratoga in the Grade 1, $600,000 Forego.

Jockey Joel Rosario pulled Whitmore up Saturday during his gallop-out. The 8-year-old Pleasantly Perfect gelding walked on to the medical van under his own power and was examined for a non-life-threatening leg injury.

Whitmore “walked into his stall sound,” Moquett wrote. “Although his injury is small in nature, When he walks out of stall 19 and gets on the van to go home it will be as a retired Champion.”

Whitmore raced five times in 2021, finishing second twice and third twice. He retires with a 43: 15-13-5 career record and more than $4.5 million earned for owners Moquett, Robert LaPenta, and Head of Plains Partners.

Whitmore debuted a winner in November 2015 at Churchill Downs and returned there the following May to contest the 2016 Kentucky Derby, finishing 19th. He turned to sprinting after that and became a star.

The venerable gelding scored Grade 1 triumphs in the 2018 Forego and 2020 Breeders’ Cup Sprint, the latter at 18-1 odds last fall at Keeneland. He picked up a collection of other graded stakes wins along the way, including three different editions of the Count Fleet Sprint Handicap (G3) at Oaklawn Park.