HOT SPRINGS -- Whitmore's run as Oaklawn Park's top sprinter continues.
The 5-year-old son of Pleasantly Perfect, trained by Ron Moquett, dug deep under champion rider Ricardo Santana Jr. to pass all others in the stretch of the Grade III $400,000 6-furlong Count Fleet Handicap before an estimated crowd of 64,500 at Oaklawn Park.
Whitmore has won 10 of 18 career starts, but he had never before employed a last-to-first route to a win as he did under Santana to hit the wire first in the Count Fleet on Saturday, the final day of the racetrack's 2018 season and Racing Festival of the South.
Moquett, who has been ill in recent days and had to watch the race on a TV from his Hot Springs home, said he has enough faith in Whitmore and Santana's ability to not concern himself with pace variables.
"I just have so much trust in this horse and with Ricardo," Moquett said. "It's hard watching it from your couch, but I can promise you this, I was riding with him down the stretch."
Whitmore, the 4-5 favorite, was last in the field of six from the start. Smart Spree was first from the gate and first through the opening quarter-mile in 21.98, the half-mile in 45.64 and first as the field turned for home at the head of the stretch.
Whitmore was last, 5 lengths off the lead through the half, but was fourth, 3 lengths off the pace with 3/16ths of a mile left. Santana directed Whitmore to the middle of the track, and his momentum was apparent.
"When he got in the clear, he became a different horse," Santana said. "He just blew by them."
With an eighth of a mile to go, Whitmore began to reel in the field. He passed Wilbo to move into third, then Smart Spree who had surrendered the lead to Wynn Time, and finally Wynn Time in the final 50 yards to win by three-quarters of a length in 1:09.77.
Wilbo was second, a head in front of third-place Wynn Time. Smart Spree -- who led through quarter-mile and half-mile splits of 21.98 and 45.64, respectively -- faded to fourth, 2 lengths behind Wynn Time.
"He's a class horse," Santana said of Whitmore. "His class won out. He ran a really good race."
Whitmore has become a regular and Oaklawn star. After he turned in a memorable run to Kentucky Derby qualification in 2016 -- with second-place finishes in Oaklawn's Southwest and Rebel stakes, and a third in the Arkansas Derby -- he finished 19th of 20 in the Kentucky Derby.
He did not race again until December, when Moquett returned him for the final race of his 3-year-old campaign in an optional-claiming 6½-furlong sprint at Aqueduct Racetrack in New York. Whitmore passed 6 furlongs in 1:11.6 en route to the first of his five consecutive victories, including wins in Oaklawn's 6-furlong Hot Springs Stakes and the 2017 Count Fleet to begin a run of six graded-stakes races, four of which he won.
"We always knew he could sprint," Moquett said in a recent interview. "We could tell he was a sprinter when we got him."
Norm McKnight's 7-year-old trainee Smart Spree has sprinted throughout his long career but has only recently shown the sort of colors required for stakes participation.
McKnight, a native of Canada, had raced his stable almost exclusively on synthetic surfaces common to Canadian tracks.
Since his trainer's move to Oaklawn, Smart Spree entered the Count Fleet with four consecutive 6-furlong wins on the racetrack's dirt surface.
Sports on 04/15/2018