Elmont, NY (Sports Network) – Odds-on favorite Point of Entry, in just his second start of the year, rallied through the stretch to win Saturday’s $500,000 Manhattan Handicap at Belmont Park.<\/p>\n
Trained by Shug McGaughey and ridden by John Velazquez, Point of Entry took the lead with 100 yards to run and was able to post 1 1\/2-length victory over 5-1 second pick Optimizer.<\/p>\n
Owned by Phipps Stable, co-owner of Kentucky Derby winner Orb, Point of Entry covered the 1 1\/4 miles on a yielding turf course in 2:02.55.<\/p>\n
Setting the pace in the Manhattan was 23-1 longshot Plainview. Racing second was Optimizer with the 1-2 favorite Point of Entry far back in the eight-horse field.<\/p>\n
“I wanted to be far back just because of how the ground is,” Velazquez revealed after the win.<\/p>\n
Around the final turn, Optimizer and jockey Joel Rosario took the lead as Point of Entry moved into second from the outside. These two battled as they entered the stretch.<\/p>\n
At the top of the stretch. Point of Entry and Optimizer were joined by Real Solution, the 8-1 fourth choice. These three drove together toward the wire with Point of Entry finding something extra nearing the finish.<\/p>\n
Real Solution finished third followed by Finnegans Wake, Twilight Eclipse, Plainview, Side Road and Bombaguia. Quick Casablanca and Speaking of Which were early scratches.<\/p>\n
Point of Entry gave his jockey the first Manhattan Handicap win of his career and the 4,997th overall. The win was worth $300,000 as the 5-year-old posted his seventh win in the last eight starts.<\/p>\n
Point of Entry has earned $2,314,490 in 17 lifetime starts and nine wins. He began 2013 by winning the Gulfstream Park Turf Handicap over Animal Kingdom.<\/p>\n
Last year he won five of seven starts, including the Man o’War, Sword Dancer and Turf Classic. Point of Entry finished second by a half-length in the Breeders’ Cup Turf to Little Mike.<\/p>\n
Point of Entry paid $3.10, $2.50 and $2.10. Optimizer returned $3.90 and $3.00, and Real Solution paid $4.10 to show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elmont, NY (Sports Network) – Odds-on favorite Point of Entry, in just his second start of the year, rallied through the stretch to win Saturday’s $500,000 Manhattan Handicap at Belmont Park. Trained by Shug McGaughey and ridden by John Velazquez, Point of Entry took the lead with 100 yards to run and was able to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[330],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9472\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}