Bay Bridge looks like a Group 1 horse in Brigadier Gerard victory

Bay Bridge looked like a Group 1-type horse winning his stakes debut, the Group 3 Brigadier Gerard, on Thursday at Sandown Park in England.

Multiple Group 1 winner Addeybb, making his first start since October, set the pace in the 1 1/4-mile Brigadier Gerard. Favored Mostahdaf, a winner in six of his seven races, pounced on Addeybb with about a quarter-mile remaining, but Ryan Moore on Bay Bridge was following Mostahdaf’s every move, swooping down to take the lead with about a furlong remaining and drawing quickly away for an impressive five-length win. Mostahdaf held second, one length in front of Addeybb, with Dubai Future and Lord Glitters brining up the rear.

Trained by Michael Stoute for James Wiggan (the owner of Dank, who won the Beverly D. and Breeders’ Cup Filly and Mare Turf on the way to winning a turf female Eclipse Award in 2013), Bay Bridge lost his two starts as a 2-year-old of 2020 but went 4 for 4 during a conservative 2021 campaign.

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Stoute, who is apt to bring horses like this along very slowly, started Bay Bridge off this year in the Brigadier Gerard, and the colt now looks ready for a sterner test. The Hardwicke Stakes at Royal Ascot, a race Stoute has won a remarkable 11 times, is a possible target. Bay Bridge, by New Bay out of Hayyona, by Multiplex, also quickly had his price cut by British bookmakers for the Prince of Wales’s Stakes and the Eclipse Stakes.