Coglianese /NYRA Photo Photo

Your Love relishes spotlight in Shine Again win

by Brian Bohl

Paul Pompa, Jr.'s Your Love overtook Heavenly Score and Come Dancing in the stretch and held off a late-charging Cairenn to win the sixth running of the $100,000 Shine Again for fillies and mares 4-years-old and up on Wednesday at Saratoga Race Course.

Off as the 2-1 second choice, Your Love broke alertly under Hall of Fame jockey Javier Castellano and stayed just off Come Dancing's early fractions of 22.51 seconds for a quarter-mile with the half in 45.69 on the fast main track with Heavenly Score in close pursuit.

Out of the turn, Your Love gained ground on a three-wide trip and gained the lead in midstretch under Castellano's right-handed whip. The Chad Brown trainee steadied to the wire, completing seven furlongs in 1:23.70 to defeat a rallying Cairenn by one length.

"I liked my horse today. I liked the way she did it," Castellano said. "[I] sat right off the pace a little bit. Two horses set the pace and I was second, third, and that's what I was looking for. I just wanted to manage her in the last part of the race and I think it worked out great today.

"The first time I rode the horse, I didn't know much about her and I tried to split horses," he added. "I made a couple mistakes. I learned through the process and I'm glad we got it done today."

Your Love won her first stakes start and notched her first victory in three tries at Saratoga after running sixth in the 2017 Grade 1 Test and finishing second in an allowance race on September 4 at the Spa.

The 4-year-old Flatter filly paid $6.90 on a $2 win bet. She improved her career earnings to $251,200.

"The pace was good in front of her, and she really responded," Brown said. "I like the fact that Javier waited and let the other horse come up and engage the front runner, and we can let them do a little bit of the work and wait and make that final move. That's the way she prefers to run. Javier got to know her a bit in her last start which was a bit of a troublesome trip. This time today, he rode a beautiful ride on her."

Cairenn, trained by Graham Motion, hit the wire one length ahead of the favorite Heavenly Score for second. The 4-year-old daughter of First Dude has finished on the board in 12 straight starts, going 3-5-4 in that span.

Come Dancing, Impasse, Wonderment, Yorkiepoo Princess and Aura Rose completed the order of finish.