Sacred Wish held off multiple Grade 1 winner Gina Romantica to win Sunday’s $300,000 Matriarch S. (G1) at Del Mar by a neck in what was the first graded stakes victory for the 4-year-old filly.
The win came about an hour after Not This Time’s Clock Tower won the Cecil B. DeMille S. (G3) over the same turf course, giving Not This Time his 14th and 15th stakes winners of 2024. Sacred Wish is the seventh Grade 1 winner for her sire, joining luminaries such as Epicenter, Up to the Mark and Cogburn.
From her inside post, Sacred Wish settled just in behind the expected pacesetter Ag Bullet, who led the way through a half-mile in :47.57 and six furlongs in 1:11.59. Ag Bullet still had the lead after turning for home, when Sacred Wish swung off the fence and mounted her bid. She got by Ag Bullet inside the final furlong and outran Gina Romantica to the wire to finish the mile in 1:34.76 on the firm turf.
“She is a great horse,” jockey John Velazquez said of the winner. “(Before the race) I thought she would take me farther down in the lane, and I could get her going along the turn. And it worked out perfect. The horse in the lead [Ag Bullet] took me where I thought. She pulled out and she had a nice kick to fight down the lane.”
Owned by Black Type Thoroughbreds, Swinbank Stables, Steve Adkisson, Christopher T. Dunn and Anthony Spinazzola, Sacred Wish is now 4-6-3 in 17 starts and has earned $985,138. She was bred in Kentucky by John Penn.
Pedigree Notes from the TDN
Sacred Wish became the 19th graded winner for Not This Time, whose son Clock Tower became his 18th just an hour or so earlier with his win in the GIII Cecil B. DeMille Stakes. Indian Wish has a yearling colt by Knicks Go, who sold for $40,000 at Keeneland September. The mare is a half-sister to Grade I-placed Sister Girl Blues, the dam of GI Kentucky Derby runner-up Firing Line (Line of David), as well as to the dams of Grade I winners Sharp Azteca and Bowies Hero.
