More stakes success for Sacred Bridge

Juddmonte homebred Sacred Bridge (Bated Breath) collected her first stakes win as a three-year-old on Friday, having already won a Listed and Group 3 race as a juvenile.

Taken from the Thoroughbred Daily News, 7th May 2022:

Perhaps surprisingly given the emphatic nature of her success in the six-furlong Gr.3 Round Tower Stakes at the Curragh in August, Sacred Bridge had been unable to take the next step up in Newmarket's Gr.1 Juddmonte Cheveley Park Stakes in September.

The bay was very much back in her comfort zone here to regain the winning thread in the Listed Polonia Stakes at Cork on 6th May. Prominent from the outset racing towards the stands, she was in front a furlong from home and showed tenacity to hold the Round Tower third Ladies Church as that rival closed.

"The ground walks good, but rode very slow for her," assistant trainer Shane Lyons said. "She is in all the big races, the Group 2 Sandy Lane at Haydock and the Commonwealth, but we'll talk to Barry [Mahon] and the team. She'll improve in a better class of race when she'll get plenty of pace."

Sacred Bridge is a full-sister to the Gr.1 Matriarch Stakes and Gr.2 Ballston Spa Stakes heroine Viadera and a half to the Listed Blue Riband Trial and Listed Churchill Stakes winner and Gr.2 Prix Eugene Adam and Gr.3 Hampton Court Stakes runner-up Crossed Baton (Dansili). She shares her Listed-winning second dam Quandary with the four-times Group 1-winning European champion Twice Over (Observatory) and the Group 1 heroines Passage of Time (Dansili) and Timepiece (Zamindar). Her dam Sacred Shield has the two-year-old colt Pavise and a yearling full-sister to the winner and Viadera.