Limousine Liberal, Whitmore to meet in Belmont Sprint Championship

ELMONT, N.Y. – Limousine Liberal, third in the Grade 1 Metropolitan Handicap, and Whitmore, second in the Grade 2 True North, head the field expected for Saturday’s Grade 2, $350,000 Belmont Sprint Championship.

Limousine Liberal is a multiple stakes winner at the Belmont Sprint distance of seven furlongs. He finished 5 1/4 lengths behind Bee Jersey and Mind Your Biscuits in the Met Mile.

“He ran real well,” trainer Ben Colebrook said. “Didn’t have the cleanest trips. Got bumped coming out of the gate, and then Bolt d’Oro was bumping with him the whole way around the turn. We finally got his position, and we got a good, clean run from the top of the stretch home.”

Colebrook said Limousine Liberal was probably just third-best anyway and that with a cleaner trip he might have finished a closer third.

Whitmore was beaten just a neck by Imperial Hint in the True North at 6 1/2 furlongs. The seven furlongs may be stretching him a bit far.

The Belmont Sprint, which offers a fees-paid berth to the Breeders’ Cup Sprint, is expected to include Favorable Outcome, Long Haul Bay, Shaft of Light, and True Timber.