Champion Whitmore may be retired, but he got in on the Breeders’ Cup action Nov. 5 at Keeneland Race Course nevertheless.

The 2020 Breeders’ Cup Sprint winner worked as the mount for NBC’s Donna Barton Brothers as she interviewed Irad Ortiz Jr. upon his return from winning the Qatar Racing Breeders’ Cup Sprint aboard Juddmonte’s Elite Power.

“So Whitmore, being the champion he is, showed up when I really needed him which was for the post-race interview with Irad Ortiz Jr. after he won the Sprint,” Brothers said. “Before the race he was a little bit nervous. He was standing there with a couple of the other ponies but when those ponies walked off and the wind picked up, he did do a walking sort of presentation at that point. But he did as well as you could expect him to do and he showed up like a true champion for the post-race interview.”

Retired from racing at the end of 2021 after amassing 15 wins, 13 seconds, and five thirds from 43 starts with earnings of $4.5 million for trainer Ron Moquett, who owned him in partnership with Robert LaPenta and Head of Plains Partners. Whitmore has been in training with Laura Moquett to pursue a second career as a pleasure mount.

He competed Oct. 15 in the competitive trail division of the Retired Racehorse Project’s Thoroughbred Makeover, the largest Thoroughbred retraining competition in the world for Thoroughbred racehorses.