Since he captured a two-turn allowance for his first win for his new connections June 5, No Love For Juba has given trainer Toschia Spriggs plenty to be optimistic about moving forward.

The Juba gelding, foaled on Valentine’s Day 2020, has even given some indication of possessing a romantic heart – at least for one person in particular.

Now a five-year-old son of Juba that Spriggs trains for owner Adam King, No Love For Juba has exhibited more than a hint of back class since his new trainer reached in to claim him for the very modest sum of $5,000 on April 11.

He finished second as the slight favorite in that event, and the third time proved to be the charm for Spriggs and King. In his third start for the new connections, No Love For Juba captured an allowance/optional claimer by nearly two lengths while getting the seven furlongs in 1:26.29 as the 4-1 fourth choice in a field of seven state-bred males with Reshawn Latchman aboard.

“He’s done everything right for me so far,” Spriggs said of No Love For Juba, who now sports a solid 7-5-4 slate and nearly $210,000 banked from 32 career tries, albeit the first 29 for trainers James and Ronald Sigler. “He’s all business in the morning. He doesn’t like a lot of people, but he’s really fond of my five-year-old granddaughter, Alana.”

No Love For Juba graduated against maiden special weight foes in his fifth lifetime try and immediately parlayed that into a victory in the West Virginia Futurity. It would be nearly a year, however, until October 27, 2023 when No Love For Juba found the winners’ circle again. That win allowance foes which was followed by a nondescript eighth-place finish in the Randy Funkhouser Memorial in 2023, his last venture into stakes company to date.

No Love For Juba appeared to find his winning ways in the winter of 2024, winning three consecutive allowance races on February 1, Feb. 22 and March 9, the last of them as the even-money favorite in a compact field of four for trainer Ronald Sigler.

But those victories again hardly proved foretelling as No Love For Juba failed to win another race in 2024 then opened the current campaign with a quartet of modest outings and prompting Sigler to drop him in for $5,000 on April 11 when Spriggs and King stepped in.

“I have several other nice older horses like him now,” said Spriggs, who learned much of the craft from her father, trainer Lloyd Scott, a longtime Charles Town horseman who saddled 138 winners from 1,100 starters with earnings of just over $2 million. “I have some that fit the starter optional races.”

In his first start for Spriggs and King, No Love For Juba finished second as the 7-5 favorite in a two-turn starter/optional event on May 1 and then was fourth in a tough allowance/optional $15,000 claiming event for older runners on May 24.

But he rebounded from those two setbacks to capture a two-turn allowance in his last outing, ending a prolonged drought that spanned 11 starts over nearly 15 months. Spriggs now has saddled four winners from 32 starters this year and boasts an even dozen winners from 141 runners in her career to date.

As for No Love for Juba’s future, Spriggs will take it as it comes.

“I am not sure when I will enter No Love For Juba again,” she said. “We have some long-term plans for him, but those don’t always pan out, so we’re just going to take it one day at a time and one race at a time.”