Softer spot suits Your Love in Shine Again

PHOTOGRAPHER: Erica Miller

Your Love and Javier Castellano hold off Cairenn to win the Shine Again by a length.

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SARATOGA SPRINGS — OK, let’s try this again.

Javier Castellano got another shot at riding Your Love.

Your Love got another shot at Saratoga Race Course.

It turned out to be a winning combination, as Your Love outdueled two horses to her inside at the top of the stretch, then had enough left in the tank to hold off the hard-charging Cairenn to win the $100,000 Shine Again at seven furlongs on the main track Wednesday.

Last year, Your Love was ambitiously entered in the Grade I Test and finished in sixth, well behind winner American Gal.

Castellano got the mount in her last start, an optional claiming race at Belmont Park, where she was second by a length. He second-guessed his ride that day, but learned from it and made good next time out.

“The first time I rode the horse, I didn’t know much about her and I tried to split horses,” Castellano said. “I made a couple mistakes. I learned through the process, and I’m glad we got it done today.”

Your Love began her career by winning two races, each by a neck, last year, at which point trainer Chad Brown and owner Paul Pompa Jr. threw her into the Test.

After the sixth-place finish, they dropped her down in class and also gave her six months away from the races after she finished her fall campaign.

“We took a big swing at the plate and let her regroup for awhile, and then we gave her some time off,” Brown said. “Paul Pompa is a veteran. He’s had horses for a long time. He’s patient as far as resting them and regrouping. He gave her all the time she needed, and she came back bigger and stronger.”

HALL OF FAME

The 2018 National Museum of Racing Hall of Fame induction ceremony will be held at 10:30 a.m. Friday at the Fasig-Tipton pavilion, with just one inductee in the contemporary category, the 1994 champion 3-year-old filly Heavenly Prize.

Among her victories that year was the Alabama at Saratoga.

She came back to the Spa in 1995 and won the John A. Morris and Go for Wand.

The class will also include the racehorse Preakness and trainer William Lakeland, as voted by the Historic Review Committee, and Pillars of the Turf Ellias “Lucky” Baldwin, August Belmont I, Cot Campbell, Penny Chenery, John W. Galbreath, Arthur Hancock Sr., Hal Price Headley, John Morrissey, Dr. Charles H. Strub, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, Harry Payne Whitney and William Collins Whitney.

Museum president John Hendrickson will introduce an upcoming museum project “intended to revolutionalize the Hall of Fame.”

Kenny Rice of NBC Sports will serve as master of ceremonies.

CHARITY HOOPS

The annual charity basketball game between NYRA jockeys and horsemen will be held 6:30 p.m. Thursday at the Saratoga Springs Recreation Center at 15 Vanderbilt Avenue.

Admission is free, with proceeds from halftime raffles benefitting the Racetrack Chaplaincy of America, New York division.

The game will feature an appearance by NBA Hall of Famer Bernard King.

KRONE SIGNING

Hall of Fame jockey Julie Krone will be signing autographs at the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame from 12:30-1:15 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 19.

The cost is $15, with proceeds benefitting the museum. Krone will be signing limited-edition prints of artwork by Celeste Susany depicting Krone’s victory aboard Colonial Affair in the 1993 Belmont Stakes.

Reach Gazette Sportswriter Mike MacAdam at 518-395-3146 or [email protected]. Follow on Twitter @Mike_MacAdam.