Whitmore has chauffeur for this Vanderbilt Stakes

SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. – In 2017, the last time Whitmore shipped to Saratoga for the Grade 1 Alfred G. Vanderbilt, he suffered a foot injury upon arrival and was forced to miss the race.

Three years later, Whitmore is still among the top sprinters in racing and on Monday he is expected to ship from Kentucky to Saratoga for next Saturday’s $250,000 Vanderbilt. Unlike in 2017, when he was flown to New York, this time Whitmore will come by van.

“When he landed at the Albany airport, he started kicking and pawing and stuff and he ended up pulling his shoe off and I couldn’t run,” trainer Ron Moquett said. “Since then, if we’re going to go the week of the race then I’ll haul him in his van. He’s got a two-horse box stall van and we just load him up and take him ourselves.”

With the Breeders’ Cup being held at Keeneland this year, Moquett was hoping not to have to leave Kentucky for the remainder of the year. But there were no graded sprint stakes scheduled at the Keeneland July meet, and the Churchill Downs Sprint Handicap was not scheduled for Kentucky Derby week in September.

Thus, the Vanderbilt becomes Whitmore’s next spot after he posted wins in the Hot Springs Stakes and Grade 3 Count Fleet at Oaklawn Park this spring.

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Moquett felt the Count Fleet was “as stout top to bottom a race as there was and I thought he performed very well.”

“He’ll have to give a little more time this time,” he said.

Whitmore came to Saratoga in 2018 and won the Grade 1 Forego, beating City of Light, who would come back to win the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile and the Grade 1 Pegasus the following January.

“Those are the kinds of horses you run against at Saratoga, and to be able to say that we beat that kind of horse, that makes it all the more sweet,” Moquett said. “To win a Grade 1 at Saratoga is what everybody wants to do this for.”

Due to the restrictions that will not permit jockeys from other jurisdictions to come to New York, Joe Talamo will not be able to ride Whitmore in the Vanderbilt. Talamo had ridden him in his last three starts. Joel Rosario has picked up the mount.

On Friday at Churchill Downs, Whitmore breezed a half-mile in 49.40 seconds in company with Seven Nation Army.

Others pointing to the Vanderbilt include Diamond Oops, Firenze Fire, Lexitonian, Mind Control and Volatile.