Brooklyn Bridge ends run of outs in Regional Championships for Ellen Bartley and Blake Jones

After the pair secured two placings in the first two editions of the feature race, Brooklyn Bridge was able to defy plenty of mid-race pressure to provide them with the biggest wins of their careers.

Brooklyn Bridge went on to dominate his rivals at Riverina Paceway on Friday, winning by 12.8 metres.

Jones scored his 1000^th career win at Wagga on Tuesday and was thrilled to cap off the week with the region's most-sought after race.

"It was awesome," Jones said. "I couldn't have been any happier with him.

"You don't want to get too ahead of yourself as anything can happen in racing and we were just lucky everything panned out, nothing went wrong and it worked out good."

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Jones thought drawing to advantage really helped.

Brooklyn Bridge ($1.28 fav) was able to find the front from barrier four while most of his main rivals starting off the back row.

While David Druitt made an early move on Oratoria ($9) made an early move to race without cover throughout he couldn't sustain the pressure.

Instead he got pipped for second by Louthario ($34).

The race hasn't been a kind one for Jones, and even had Forever Yin set for this year before a trackwork accident.

He was thrilled to finally get the win.

"When this race came along for this fella everything just panned out for him," Jones said.

"We haven't had a lot of luck in other years and had Forever Yin aiming up for it this year and he went amiss a fortnight before the heats and we were a bit down in the dumps after that but I'm glad this fella has come through and done the job for us instead."

The engaged couple had two runners in the inaugural race in 2020 with Western Sonador third while Bartley drove Brooklyns Best herself and finished last.

They were then second with Forever Yin in 2021 and while they qualified Be My Girl for this year's final, Bartley elected to watch from the sidelines this time around.

Despite Brooklyn Bridge seemingly leaving his rivals at the top of the straight, Bartley didn't want to celebrate too early.

"In the last 400 I was there thinking where is it going to go wrong, where's the swoopers, where's the but no one came," Bartley said.

"It's very thrilling and when they were going so hard through the middle my heart was in my mouth, I just felt sick and thought is he going to be good enough to stick on but he's so brave and he just kept trucking."

The pair have been targetting this race since Brooklyn Bridge was a two-year-old.

Bartley believes patience was the key to their success.

"We haven't had any luck but this has been a long-range plan for this horse," she said. "For it to pay off patience really is a virtue.

"I'm very proud of Blake as he identified this horse as a potential for this race as a very young horse and he had good judgement."

The race has lost its group one status this season but the prizemoney remains the same.

It felt like a group one for Bartley.

"It's not every day you win a $100,000 race so we will still party like we won a group one," she said.

The party can't last too long with Brooklyn Bridge and Louthario now qualifying for the $100,000 state final at Menangle on Saturday.

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