Rugbyman drills for stakes debut in Easy Goer

Add Rugbyman to the list of prospective starters for next Saturday’s Easy Goer Stakes.

Trainer Graham Motion made that decision not long after the lightly raced Tapit colt worked four furlongs in dense fog in 48.60 seconds over the Belmont Park main track under jockey Jose Ortiz early Friday morning.

Rugbyman enters the 1 1/16-mile Easy Goer off a 14-length maiden win here May 13. He had finished third in his career debut four weeks earlier at Keeneland.

“Jose seemed happy with him this morning, so I’m inclined to give him the opportunity to run in the Easy Goer,” Motion said by phone from the Fair Hill Training Center. “Obviously, it’s a big jump, but the alternative is to end up in a one-other-than allowance race against older horses, so you’re kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. I couldn’t have expected him to run the way he did when he broke his maiden in his second start, but the way he won, I believe he deserves a shot and belongs in there.”

Motion also had a busy morning at Fair Hill on Friday, working several horses for races next week in New York, including Berned in the Ogden Phipps Stakes, Lady Alexandra in the Intercontinental, and Cairenn,who is under consideration for the Bed o’ Roses.