For the Ladies scores Shine Again shocker
Prevails in three-horse thriller
Frank Vespe
August 29, 2026
Prior to Saturday’s running of the $75,000 Shine Again Stakes at Timonium, trainer Pedro Nazario had saddled 778 starters in his career. Precisely zero had come in stakes company.
He snapped that streak – and registered his first stakes win – when For the Ladies registered a thrilling neck victory in the 6 ½-furlong contest for fillies and mares. For the Ladies wore down longtime leader Mudslide in late stages and had just enough to hold off the late inside bid of Conquerthosewecan.
“I can’t explain [how it feels], man,” Nazario said afterwards. “I was jumping, crying. It was something else.”
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Nazario had claimed For the Ladies, a three-year-old Upstart mare, for $25,000 two back from an optional claiming win. In her first start for Nazario, For the Ladies went wire-to-wire to win another starter/optional claimer, paying immediate dividends.
But the Shine Again appeared a difficult step up: For the Ladies went off at just shy of 20-1. And in a race that seemed to be filled with early speed, her front-running style seemed unlikely to be an asset.
The ultra-speedy Kelly Deiter trainee Mudslide was away quickest to own the front, while jockey Raul Mena, aboard For the Ladies for the first time, was able to get her to settle off the pace, out wide in the clear and no more than three lengths off the leader.
“I’ve been galloping her, and I’ve been trying to teach her a little bit to rate because she’s always been rank,” Nazario said. “I mean, I don’t know if that helped.”
Apparently, it did.
Approaching the far turn in the two-turn event, Mena and For the Ladies went to the attack while out wide. But Mudslide proved stubborn, holding the lead into deep stretch.
Meanwhile, the Brittany Russell-trained Conquerthosewecan, a tough-luck second in Colonial Downs’s Love Sign Stakes last out, mounted her challenge to the inside in the very late stages.
“I was really nervous [when Conquerthosewecan mounted her final charge],” Nazario said. “I was really screaming my lungs out pushing for her.”
For the Ladies prevailed by a neck in 1:18.49 for 6 ½ furlongs on a fast main track. Conquerthosewecan was another neck ahead of show horse Mudslide, who herself was a neck better than the very late-running favorite, Amalfi Drive, who finished fourth but galloped out in front of all of them.
For the Ladies returned her relatively few backers $41.80. She earned her third straight win and now has four wins from eight career starts to go with earnings of $154,810.
Nazario had claimed For the Ladies on the advice of breeder Diane Krasznay, whose Heart’s Desire Farm bred the Upstart filly and subsequently sold her. For the Ladies had gone through the sales ring twice, bringing a top bid of $60,000 as a yearling and then $125,000 as a two-year-old.
When she showed up for $25,000 at Nazario’s Delaware Park base, Krasznay advised him to bite.
“She was like, you know, I think it’s a good claim, and I’m like, okay,” Nazario recalled. “I looked it up, and I saw her numbers and her two good races as a two-year-old, and that’s why we went for it.”
Krasznay still owns the mare, she said, a winning daughter of Proud Citizen named Lovely Marissa. Lovely Marissa is currently in foal to Bolt d’Oro. The win was also Krasznay’s first stakes triumph as a breeder.
“I can’t believe it. We were praying for this day,” she said afterwards.
NOTES In the first two days of the seven-day stand, jockeys Angel Cruz (4 wins) and Jeiron Barbosa (3) have moved to the head of the class, while Anthony Farrior’s three wins top the training standings… Nazario worked for several years for trainer Ferris Allen, who won his first race of the meet when Aztec, with Barbosa up, slipped through along the rail to win the sixth race by a nose…
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