Scratches turn Easy Goer Stakes into a match race; Celtic Striker wins as the second choice

ELMONT, N.Y. - Thursday’s Easy Goer Stakes for 3-year-olds at Belmont Park started out as a six-horse field. By late-morning scratch time it was down to three. After another scratch at the gate, it became a match race.

Ultimately, it was a mismatch.

Celtic Striker, with Manny Franco using his colt’s speed to his advantage, beat the late-running Sonneman by 19 3/4 lengths in the $60,000 Easy Goer at Belmont Park.

Celtic Striker, who went off at odds of 168-1 when he finished sixth in the Grade 3 Matt Winn at Churchill in May and 135-1 when he finished last of 11 in the Grade 3 Gotham at Aqueduct in March, returned $5.50 as the 8-5 “longshot” in the Easy Goer.

Celtic Striker had been entered in Saturday’s Grade 3, $500,000 Ohio Derby at Thistledown. Trainer Ray Handal wanted to run in New York all along and was able to convince his owners, Imperial Racing, to stay home after Celtic Striker drew post 15 in Ohio.

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“I was happy to get them to stay home, he trains so well over Belmont,” Handal said. “I had a lot of confidence in him today even going with a six-horse field, I liked him. I mean, I’ll take a two-horse field all day, baby.”

Casino Grande, the 8-5 morning-line favorite, was scratched by trainer Christophe Clement because the horse was showing signs of being sick. Informative was scratched by trainer Uriah St. Lewis to run in the Ohio Derby. Prodigious Bay was scratched by the examining vets in the morning. During pre-race warm-ups, John Velazquez didn’t like the way Toy was traveling and he was scratched by the vet at the gate.

Celtic Striker jumped out to a one-length lead soon after the start. Franco guided him into the middle of the track to make Jose Ortiz put Sonneman on the inside.

“I wanted to keep him on the inside to see what kind of move he [makes],” Franco said.

At the five-furlong move, Ortiz did try to make a move aboard Sonneman, but Franco countered with one of his own and opened up a 2 1/2-length lead entering the turn. It was basically over from there as Celtic Striker spurted away again and Sonneman couldn’t keep up.

Celtic Striker, a son of Congrats, covered the 1 1/16 miles in 1:42.37.

“I knew my horse is a lot faster than the other one so I think that was an advantage,” said Franco, who was coming off a win last Saturday in the Belmont Stakes aboard Tiz the Law.

Ortiz said he definitely asked his horse earlier than he would have in a field with more horses.

“My horse is a horse that comes from off the pace, clearly it would have benefited me if we had a bigger field but we didn’t,” Ortiz said. “I broke okay, tried to push Manny a little bit and make sure we had an honest pace. My plan was to be as close as I could and try to wear him out late. When he asked his horse, he was full of [run] and he just drew away from me.”