Sisterson back at barn days following back surgery

Jack Sisterson said he’s “hobbling around like a 90-year-old man,” and yet there he was Thursday morning, looking after his horses at Keeneland, less than 72 hours after undergoing surgery for a herniated disc in his lower back Monday in a Lexington, Ky., hospital.

“I was having an awful pain going down my right leg,” said Sisterson, 35. “The doctor explained to me what he was going to do, and it must’ve worked. The pain relief was pretty instant.”

Sisterson said his afternoon absences during the five-day Keeneland meet, which ends Sunday, should have gone scarcely noticed. As a key assistant to Doug O’Neill during the glory years of Kentucky Derby winners I’ll Have Another and Nyquist, Sisterson was watching very intently when learning how to delegate from the top down.

“My staff is incredible,” he said. “I wish the program didn’t even carry my name. It just goes to show in a time like this, we’ve got things in place that these guys don’t really need me. Everyone does their job so well.”

Sisterson, a native of England, began training on his own two summers ago with the Calumet Farm of Brad Kelley. His 32 wins from 249 starts include seven stakes, four of them graded, with perhaps the crack sprinter Lexitonian being his best horse to date.

His stable essentially is a private one for Calumet, with “an outside horse or two,” he said. Based primarily at the farm and Keeneland, his stable has become multi-tiered. This week alone, not only was he to be represented by four runners at Keeneland, but also one at Indiana Grand, plus Vexatious being cross-entered in the Ruffian at Belmont and the Delaware Handicap.

“I’ll be sending a string to Saratoga, and we’ll probably run some out at Del Mar,” he said.

Clearly, this recent surgery may have slowed him down personally, but the stable continues to tick over. He said he must have injured his back last fall, when he went over a fence in pursuit of a horse who had gotten loose on the Keeneland training track, “or maybe it was an old soccer injury,” referring to his college career at the University of Louisville and with club teams.

“Pretty soon it’ll be as if this never happened,” he said. “My thoughts go out to people who are in a lot worse shape than I am during this difficult time.”

Whitmore quietly enters sprint

Fearing that perhaps the race wouldn’t fill if it was known Whitmore was going in it, Ron Moquett wasn’t telling many people he intended to run the star sprinter in a wide-open allowance that landed as race 8 on the closing-day card at Keeneland.

No worries, since the $80,000 race at 6 1/2 furlongs drew an oversubscribed field of 13. But even with his outstanding recency and overall record of 14 wins and 10 seconds from 34 starts, Whitmore is no cinch.

“It’s a Grade 2 allowance,” said Moquett, referring to the presence of Mr. Money, a multiple graded winner, and such capable opponents as C Z Rocket, Copper Town, and The Tabulator.

Whitmore, a stretch-running 7-year-old gelding, got about three weeks’ rest “when everything was shutting down” at the outset of the coronavirus crisis, said Moquett.

“There were a couple of things we could’ve maybe run in, but I wasn’t going to put him in a van chasing anything we could,” he said. “I’m glad this race went because it’ll set us up for a solid campaign” ending with the Phoenix and Breeders’ Cup Sprint, both back at Keeneland.

Moquett, who more than two years ago was beset with the autoimmune disease sarcoidosis, joked that he “started a trend” by regularly wearing a mask long before everyone else was doing so. Mask-wearing became mandatory Friday in Kentucky.

“Everybody should thank me I didn’t start wearing a kilt,” he said with a laugh.

◗ Kurt Becker, the Keeneland race-caller since the track first began using a public-address system in 1997, has been more talkative at this meet than in prior seasons.

Becker has introduced every horse and their owner, trainer, and jockey during the post parade of all races. Previously, only stakes races got such treatment.

Becker said the procedure will be reviewed prior to the next time fans are permitted to attend.